Alysha Brilla - In My Head - CD Review

Have a seat and strap yourself in because Alysha Brilla’s music career is about to take off like a rocket carrying a new crew to the International Space Centre.  The Tanzanian-Canadian artist’s second album, “In My Head” is set to be released on July 11th, 2013.  

Already much acclaimed,  as a musician/song-writer, Brilla (A.K.A. Alysha Brillinger) had a record deal with a major US label, but walked away due to creative differences.  Now an independant artist, Brilla wrote, performed and produced the album which follows a torrid relationship from beginning to end.

Here is a track by track look at the new album:

In My Head, the title track begins the story of the relationship with her crazy obsession with a partner. Musically, the track is mainly piano driven, with quirky circus-like sounds thrown in and some horns to add to the fun.  The song itself is an old friend from Alysha’s eponymous titled first album, “Brilla”.  The original one was acoustic and guitar driven.

Nobody finds a jubilant Brilla, who must have made a connection with that guy, because, she is on top of the world. Brilla gives a nod to her Tanzanian heritage by doing a verse in Swahili.   This song is highly percussive and charged with happiness.  My aunt heard this song and said, “I could have used this last week”.   I dare anyone to listen to it and not smile, or sit still.  You’ve got to dance!  I can actually picture the smile on Brilla’s face while she sings this.  Can’t wait to see her do it live!  

Sailor’s Wife was the first new song off the album that Brilla started to perform in late March.  In the song Alysha declares her commitment to the long distance relationship, “I’m gonna wait for you”.  The song has a Bob Marley-esque reggae vibe, with a bubbling bassline, which I love, and is flavoured with a trumpet(!) solo, brilliantly played by Marie Goudy.The music video for this song is nothing but fun to watch! Love it!

Suddenly, the relationship changes course, the “kisses aren’t as sweet, and the hugs aren’t as tight” in Ain’t Right.  The horns take the lead on this track, along with a bouncing bassline.  The song is bluesy and jazzy at the same time and I imagine it’s what I would hear in jazz club in New Orleans.

Why? Why!  Why would someone do this to you Alysha!!?  Why? Who hurt you so much?  “The truth came out that you cheated and you lied.”  This led Brilla to tears, and now she needs some serious drinks to numb the pain  with Two Shots.  Despite the sad lyrics, this track is surprisingly uptempo, and peppy.

The next five songs are representative of the five stages of grief:  denial (L.A. Hotel Room), anger (Never Gonna Get Me Back), bargaining (Sorry), depression (Mark on Me) and finally acceptance (Lifted).

The poignant, L.A. Hotel Room is one of my favourite tracks on the album.  Alysha’s guitar, vocals and emotions are front and centre.  The song is sweet and haunting, and I think it will be a sin if it doesn’t become a huge hit.

Another familiar friend, the uplifting (pun purely coincidental) Lifted is Brilla’s anthem, a floor-filling show closer, that embodies her mission of making music to make people feel good.  Just like the In My Head, this track is taken from the Brilla album and given the band treatment to great results.

Closing th album on a positive note, I Don’t Need the Stars, takes us back to a point between tracks one and two when the relationship is still new and fresh, it is a jazzy and sultry number, bass plucking, horns swooning, Alysha and background singers working the mics.  

Overall I found In My Head to be a great album.  I love Brilla’s voice, her songwriting and her spirit.  I can see this being a very successful album for her, so make sure to pick up your copy and check her out live when you get the opportunity, she always puts on an awesome show.  She’s certainly made a Brilliever out of me!  

For tour dates and more information check the links below.

Thursday July 10, 2013 - Album Release Party, Waterloo, ON

Friday July 11, 2013 - Album Release Party, Toronto, ON

 

http://alyshabrilla.com/

Prince's Welcome 2 Canada Tour

For more than half of my life I was a die-hard Prince fan.  It started when I first saw Purple Rain and was solidified when I saw Prince live in early December of 1985 on the Purple Rain tour.  Prince has released at least one album every year since 1978 and as far as I was concerned every single one of them was genius material.

Then one day in mid 2010, I was listing to Prince’s Twenty10 album I realized that the music was not good.   Then it dawned on me that the album before that was not good either, nor the one before that, I had to think back to late ‘80s to find an album that was great. 

Over the years I’ve been lucky to see Prince perform live many, many times.  He’s so good live that I’ve often travelled for his shows.  Aside from my hometown of Toronto, I’ve seen him in Montreal, Buffalo, New York and Minneapolis where on July 7^th, 2007 I was lucky enough to see two of his shows in one day, first at the Target Center and then at 1^st Avenue, on the very stage where Purple Rain was filmed.  That was the last time I’d seen him until a month ago.

Pince symbol shaped stage
Photo courtesy www.skinnydip.ca

On November 25^th, 2011 Prince kicked off his Welcome 2 Canada tour in Toronto and I already had a commitment out of town, so I had to miss it.  I ended up catching him in Ottawa a week later at Scotiabank Place on December 3^rd, 2011. 

I was super-hyped to see this show, it utilized the same amazing stage that was used for Prince’s performance at the Super Bowl four years prior.  It was shaped like the hieroglyph which Prince had used as a name for a few years. 

He opened the show with the song D.M.S.R. (Dance Music Sex Romance), from the “1999” album which was released in 1982.   The music was thumping and Prince looked more like a 20-something than a 53 year old.  I was rather surprised to see how lithe he was, considering that it was well documented that he had a bad hip from his years of high-heel wearing, however he could not take the hip replacement surgery due to his religion which forbids him from having a blood transfusion. 

Prince brought the funk throughout the night and he focused mainly on his music from the early to mid-80s.  The one exception was the song “Guitar” from 2007’s “Planet Earth” album and when he played that song it was so unfamiliar to the audience that the energy in room just deflated, even though it was a very energetic song.  It was clear that he’d lost his audience with this one and he quickly returned to the ‘80s bangers. 

This was the first time that I wasn’t familiar with the whole band line-up.  Of course I recognized a couple of the musicians that had been with Prince for a while.  The prestigious Maceo Parker was featured on saxophone.  John Blackwell, who was with Prince on 2004’s Musicology tour returned as his drummer, but not very well featured.  A newcomer to the band, Andy Allo, is a female rapper and backup singer, was stunningly gorgeous wearing a print top that featured her own face. 

Prince with Andy Allo performing at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
Photo courtesy of  www.lipstickalley.com

Andy Allo is featured on a rap during Prince’s song “Extralovable” which had been released the week before to coincide with the launch of the tour. Interestingly, the song was originally recorded in the early ‘80s, during the sessions for the 1999 album.  It was never released and finally Prince went back on re-recorded it.  In fact he mentioned that he plans to release three different versions of the song.  The original was a brutally misogynistic piece, but the new version was considerably softened.

So here’s Prince with a new song from the early ‘80s and almost every song he performed in the show was from the ‘80s. It was if he had come to same conclusion as I had about how much his more recent works lacked relevance.  Although he never did perform “Extralovable”, he did perform three songs from The Time, a group that was a prodigy of his, and it is generally accepted that he wrote most of the their songs and produced their albums.

 Prince rarely performs songs exactly like the record, his thinking is that it’s got to be better than the record, his songs are his babies and they continue to grow through years, but I was thrilled that the guitar solo ending of “Let’s Go Crazy” was a duplicate of the record, as was the guitar solo in “Purple Rain”. 

A really cool part of the show had Prince playing with a synthesizer that triggered samples of various songs.  He teased the crowd with one song or the next.  Prince’s mission with this show was to turn the arena into a dance club.  I think he succeeded.  I think Prince is one of the greatest concert performers of all time and I truly believe every other musician or serious music fan is missing out if they do not see him live.  Yet, maybe it was just me, but I couldn’t help to think that Prince failed to connect with the audience at this show.  This is one of Prince’s fortes, building a repertoire with the crowd and I didn’t sense that this time. I felt that he wasn’t totally engaged on this outing.  He had after all just played Montreal, one of the greatest cities on the planet the night before, so maybe he was tired on this bone chillingly cold night in Canada’s capital city.  

I'll never forget that day, but in the wee hours of this morning as I listened to a New York City Police scanner and heard, reports of shots fired here and there, I couldn't help but think that the Americans do such a great job of killing Americans, there really isn't a need for terrorists to do it.  


There's been a lot of talk of 9/11 unifying Americans, but people are universally violent.  Americans continue to kill Americans. Canadians continue to kill Canadians.  Middle Easters kill Middle Easters.  They say the world was forever changed, but has it changed in the right way?  The only change I see as a result of 9/11 is "justification" for more killing.


I miss those two buildings and every time I've see the New York skyline since then, my heart aches.  


For all our technological advances, man still no more than mere barbarians.  As far as relationships with each other, we our no more advanced then cavemen.  We continue to be Neanderthals.   


It's 2011 people, let's get beyond the savagery and learn to work to help each other and be good to one another.