Quinn Harris: 'Statements'
Arielle Lana LeJarde rescues an intriguing blend of funk, R&B, and soul from obscurity.
The Less Than 1,000 Spins playlist is a collaborative project that includes an exclusive DJ mix by Kenan Bell, a livestream with DJ Manipulator, and an article about 45 King’s ‘Grooves For A Quiet Storm’ by John Morrison. Today’s collaboration is an article by Arielle Lana LeJarde about Quinn Harris’ forgotten gem ‘Statements.’ His rendition of Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Making Love” appears on Less Than 1,000 Spins playlist. Arielle’s article examines ‘Statements’ as whole through a personal lens.
Arielle Lana LeJarde is a culture journalist and event producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been featured in Rolling Stone, MTV News, Genius, Billboard, and more.
You can subscribe to her newsletter and find her on Instagram and Twitter.
Some albums stay in your rotation forever. When you're experiencing music discovery burnout and nothing sounds good anymore, there's always a few in the collection that you can fall back on. For me, that's Ohio Players' 1975 LP Honey. There's just something special about music of the '70s - maybe it was the drugs or the discos, but the love songs are so inimitably raw, that I find myself always coming back to them.
As someone who's currently navigating a breakup, I've found comfort in the simple yet passionate lyricism of these soul artists - rarely do they leave room for misinterpretation. You'll hear Ohio Players singing, "Your love is like a rollercoaster, baby, I want to ride," and Bobby Caldwell saying "I got a thing for you and I can't let go." One of the most popular songs of that decade centered on Gloria Gaynor chanting, "I will survive."
I know that being a music writer means I'm supposed to relish finding meaning in the abstract, but when life is already so confusing, it's nice to have someone just tell it like it is. In Quinn Harris' Statements, which was actually released the same year as Honey, he does just that. The album is a perfect blend of funk, soul, and R&B - his saxophone and flute solos also give the record a jazzy feel. It has all the ingredients of a quintessential album of that time, but it somehow ended up practically lost in the archives.
Harris isn't polished, which makes it all the more charming. The artist only sings in four out of seven tracks, and in them, he has no shame in telling his lover how he feels. He even reserves half of them to say he's horny. And that's something I can relate to.
Songs like his cover of Roberta Flack’s "Feel Like Making Love" and "When You're in My Arms" are aptly titled - Harris is down bad. "When you're in my arms, you breathe life into my soul," he croons in the latter. It really does sound like falling in love, as Harris verbalizes the all-encompassing of allowing another person into your heart, and how in those moments, it's the only thing that matters. The cascading keys follow his voice, and he leads them deeper and deeper into his emotions.
Conceptually, Statements is kind of all over the place, which throws me off a bit when I listen to the album front-to-back. Maybe I'm dense in the sense that I need to be emotionally hand-held when listening to a project in full, but that's probably why it won't join my rotation of records to re-listen. Either way, Harris did get me out of a funk (ha) of not being able to listen to anything but my comfort albums.
Having recently experienced heartbreak, the openness is painful but refreshing. Harris' unrefined declarations of love encourage sincere vulnerability that most people are afraid of. He also got me thinking that maybe I should be more like him - rough around the edges, but honest.
Listen to the full album on your preferred platform here.
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