Born in Sudan, raised in Ohio, and relocated to Brooklyn, Ahmed Gallab spent time as an auxiliary drummer/musician with bigger-name indie acts such as Caribou and Eleanor Friedberger while always working on Sinkane, more or less his solo project and an outlet for limitless exploration of various genres, influences, and unlikely sonic combinations. Mean Love is the third album from Sinkane, following in the eclectic footsteps of 2012's Mars. Also released on the seminal dance-punk imprint DFA, Mars ran through a variety of musical appropriations, meshing heavily borrowed Fela-esque Afro-beat and '70s funk with the indie psych sensibilities of bands Gallab had been affiliated with, like Yeasayer. Mean Love follows a very similar blueprint, with Gallab building his summery tunes on foundations of heavy-handed reference points. "New Name" begins with the exact same group yelp of "aaaaaaahhhhh yah!" that kicks off the Meters' classic "Cissy Strut," but quickly blurs into a blend of soft ambience and rubbery Afro-beat grooves, with some close parallels to Caribou's more adventurous work. This type of familiarity carries through much of the album, with songs nodding to Curtis Mayfield, Talking Heads, early Parliament, and other rhythmic figureheads, all blended to perfection with Gallab's own unique approach. "Moonstruck" even takes a detour into some strange hybrid of glittery psych and breezy bossa nova. With its various exercises in genre bending, Mean Love could easily feel like a string of unofficial cover songs, but Gallab's wild combinations feel much more curious and sincere than that. A true obsession with sound comes through on Mean Love, and regardless of the mode Gallab finds himself in at any given moment, stellar production and heartfelt songwriting keep the album engaging and beautiful at every turn.
© Fred Thomas /TiVo