Abra stands apart. As contemporary R&B outliers mutate genres, bare souls and set off on journeys into sound, the aesthetic class of the young woman who calls herself "Darkwave Duchess" is all hers. Abra (no last name or age given) produces her work in Atlanta, but is blowing up in the furiously evolutionary London underground, where pirate radio stations like Rinse and NTS and the influential record shop Phonica have been early supporters. Her music is already wholly international, even though it feels locally made.
In many ways, "Thinking of U" — one of the great tracks on Princess, an EP that serves as Abra's label debut after a couple years spent releasing tracks on Bandcamp and Soundcloud — sonically encapsulates what's going around. It begins with layers of a cappella choir voices that express emotional altruism over a light ambient drone, before a bass-synth and drum machine begin an unadorned dance of syncopation and juxtaposition. The stripped-down groove is reserved but tight. Soon enough, high-end melodic keyboard parts propel the openhearted love song, in which the narrator attempts to embolden the object of her affection even though she's "always on the go." (A postcard to her lover from tour, perhaps?) It's a private sentiment, not aggrandizing or looking to achieve anthemic scale so much as get its impassioned point across.
As a finished piece, "Thinking Of U" sounds like the next great step in soulful minimalism. Abra wholly owns all the parts traditionally played by collaborators (as with Aaliyah and Timbaland, for example), filtering the work through the lo-fi analog-gear mindset of, say, Chicago house-music productions rather than maximalist hip-hop or big-studio R&B. As Atlanta experiences a house renaissance, it's clear that the Duchess is on to something special.
Princess is out now on True Panther.
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