Artist:     Midtown Social

Album:     Fantastic Colors

Label:     Self-released

Release Date:     2.14.20 90

90

BUY DIGITAL

BUY PHYSICAL

With eyes wide open, smooth indie-soul operators Midtown Social see their troubled hometown of San Francisco as it really is on Fantastic Colors, an homage of sorts to the place of their birth. Plagued by a myriad of socio-economic ills, it’s a city with astronomical real estate prices that’s always had a seedy underbelly, but the ever-widening gulf between the haves and have-nots—as evidenced by its homelessness epidemic—is becoming a greater source of civic shame. Midtown Social does not avert its eyes from the downtrodden on Fantastic Colors, confronting these and other issues head on.

Healing balm comes in the form of uplifting, empowering messages embedded in the sleek, modern R&B of Fantastic Colors. It reawakens the spirit of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and Curtis Mayfield with the street sounds and earthy protest soul of “What It Is.” The swirling, synthetic disco rush of “Darte” is cooling after the exuberant, sexy funk of “Move Your Body” and joyful, infectious dance-pop groove of “Savoir Faire,” a string-laden, synth-washed antidote for the sickness of isolation caused by society’s fixation on technological gadgets. Seal’s flowing melodies and expansive soulfulness are rediscovered in the epic, breathtaking title track, while the sunny funk-rock riot “Everybody” takes it higher like Sly and the Family Stone with florid horns and calls for inclusivity and acceptance.

Such themes bleed heavily through Fantastic Colors, responding to the fractures and wounds of a country divided by preaching about togetherness and peace. Lead singers Kisura Nyoto and Aaron Joseph both take dramatic turns in the spotlight, the former a sultry siren with strong pipes. Her swaggering, bluesy dynamics come to the fore on the crawling, pounding and galvanizing “Candlit,” and Joseph sounds clean, airy and able to soar easily into a funkified stratosphere. The lighter, more subtle, clipped grooves of Chic emerge in songs like “Play Your Game,” as drummer Richard “RJ” Julia, bassist Sarah Beth, percussionist Adam Rubinger and backing vocalist Whitney Moses live in tight spaces of groove and like it there. Interesting, engaging beats drive this party bus. Hop aboard before it leaves without you.

—Peter Lindblad