GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW at Wrongbar, Sunday, March 25. Rating: NNN
Georgia Anne Muldrow closed out CMW with a peaceable set at Wrongbar Sunday night.
Much of her work – singing, rapping, producing – is free-form and benevolent cosmic soul jams borrowing the rhythmic inflections and aura of jazz and funk updated with the body-rattling kick-snare of hip hop.
“We want you to shake it and think,” Muldrow told the crowd. “Kind of like patting your head and stomach at the same time!”
Criss-crossing the small stage in an embroidered floor-length kaftan and black leather boots, Muldrow had easy command of the audience for a short, convivial set.
Along with a cover of Flowers, the pensive piano ringer by partner Dudley Perkins, a highlight was Seeds, Muldrow’s eponymous first single from her new Madlib-produced record. It’s the crux of her sound: raw bass muddled with dense orchestral soul-jazz breaks and a hit of extemporized vocal force.
She ended with a short DJ set, skipping playfully through a glut of grooves before toasting over a deep house tune, chanting “Black House!”
Transcendence, mind and body, is Muldrow’s main aim or, as she purred winkingly stepping off stage, “clubbing with consciousness.”