Dawuna - Glass Lit Dream (2021) [Hi-Res]

Smouldering bedroom R&B flex from Brooklyn’s Dawuna, making strong debut moves on the ace O___o? label behind that Ize bullet and LA Timpa’s first record. if u like it slow x dripping in a prince/d'angelo style with a sort of pre-millennial tension/nearly god seam of dread running through it, this is dead, dead strong

Slow baked for a gooey core and crispy texture, and laced with sonic THC, Dawuna’s ‘Glass Lit Dream’ settles on the soul like the time delayed release of a good edible. It’s a finely accomplished first effort, drawing comparisons with everyone from Tricky to Prince at his wooziest and downbeat, to LA Timpa’s gauzy blooz, the meaningful minimalism of Mica & Tirzah, or Leila’s frayed intimacies, yet patently possessed of its own worries. The magick lies in how Dawuna works them out, channelling a quiet stream of consciousness thru velvet vocals, ranging from aching croon to ASMR whispers, and most nimbly stitched to crunchy drums and nagging licks that feel like Burial and Timbaland productions redressed by claire rousay.

Occupying a shadowy fidelity that’s too meticulous to be called lo-fi, but clearly not dripping with typical R&B gloss, the 10 songs hold a broad conventional appeal while boldly reserving the right to switch track at right angles. They play out in mixtape form, crucially bridged with crafty transitions that make it feel like we’re sleepwalking around Dawuna’s dreams between the earthy knocks, domestic rustle and close miked vox of ‘The Ape Prince’ and bruised blooz of ‘The Lethe, The Sea.’ We’re totally snagged on the stranger Afro-Goth R&B lilt of ‘The General’, and the Timba-tight drums and sore vocal motif of ‘Bad Karma’ lay a proper earworm, while ‘Moon, I already know’ is an unmissable piece of gently curdled, alien gospel recalling a tempered, less flamboyant fusion of Arca and Autre Ne Veut to our lugs.