Tierra Umi Wilson is already preparing for her close-up. Her 2021 EP Introspection Reimagined was, first look, an early process by a songwriter — a retelling of her 2020 EP Introspection, where she was accompanied by a live band. The re-do of an unused redundant fluff with A still nascent job, but UMI sought her hearers to encounter the phases of her artful maturation, to see the perpetual moves in instantaneously. On her solo album, Forest in the City, her augmented melody and songwriting skills make it clear what comes to fruition when an artist’s evolution is central to their posture as a showman. Her Affects — Erykah Badu, Brandy, SZA — are obvious without falling into the acronyms, her growth is exciting and captivating.
Spanning 15 songs, the album is audacious in its reach as it treads the oft-wandered kingdoms of self-discovery, stifling tiredness, and complex marriage kinetics. On the best recordings she would be a star, strands of truth combine into fantasy songwriting enough for listeners to hold on to their introspection. “I wanna be happy with my own path/I wanna be good to the friends that I have” she sings on “sorry” her syncopated oohs and ahhs holding the lyrics in a soft picture. “I want to be a stoner with my own pad/I wanna be cool with my motherfuckin ‘dad.” The atmosphere is cold but still very real, an atmosphere that encompasses the record. “too late” overhands in order to unveil too many eventually in a relationship, while you’ re here “moonlit room” deals with the complex longing that comes after disconnection. On the latter’s creon UMI shows her lines with rapid-fire regulate and clarification, transmitting duality while also feeling emotive.
Similar to her 2020 EP, UMI wrote many of the tunes on Forest in the City. While creators Logiksmind and Psymun have seemed both here and on her next endeavor, she takes a greater retain of the reins and pushes her audio in a more dynamic way. On “wish I could” she tests with a bulkier keyboard and an electronic twist to her audio that’s been elongated to accomplish a rhythmic but nonetheless stable inflection. And here we go, there are more than enough jelly prospects for the 2016 season “What would you do” a song for all those happy nightclubs. As she contemplates bringing an aficionado home or simply chilling lonely, her atmosphere is snarky and guaranteed, a resignation from the idealistic tunes of her earlier work. In this spatial es, he’s not too concerned about the dating game, monitoring its repetitive regimen and forecasting the eventual outcome — gathering data from the a variety of sources and analyzing them, floating beyond the horizon, floating beneath a horizon, someone exits, someone stays, and restate.
Halfway through the song, the length feels a bit like muscle mass; some paths touch without a perceptible objective. Tracks prefer s “whatever you like” and “birds’ eye view” are pleasurable but unmemorable — her patterned synchronization on each reveals the ease at which UMI can beach over a beat, and we also listen to her pen beyond the most forgettable. “everything will be alright” UMI starts in Japanese before moving to English, she explains the way she moves smoothly from one to the other, and camouflaging the work it takes to speckle yourself with equal perspective and strength in multiple languages. But the route feels enslaved and tailor-made to typify short lived captions about living your best life.
So Even so, she drags us back right into her satellite “Lost and Found” which creates off all the facets that contour her painting: I love you, perspectives, minimal production. UMI has a slight tan, slow-building voice, someone who can convince you that you can play it in the context while you’re doing your day. But then you hear a lyric and capture a generalized memo that commandeers your attraction – and you’ re sucked into it. Forest in the City, UMI makes the case that we are our own woodlands, that travel through loops of growth and rotting. She is already teaching about herself while plunging into her tunes, and somehow this new chapter shows an artist who will never be hustled who is ready to be shown because she has completed the legwork she’s done.
