Laurnea Wilkerson first caught my attention with her debut album Betta Listen. Laurnea was also a member of Loose Ends (replacing Jane Eugene as lead singer in the early 90s), Bobby McFerrin’s famous Voicestra ensemble, and one of the lead singers of Arrested Development and appeared in the movies Hoodlum, Sing, My Past Is My Own, and Spike Lee’s School Daze before Betta Listen was released on Yab Yum/Epic in 1997. While the album title was aptly chosen, nobody except some die-hard music fanatics and critics seem to have listen carefully to Laurnea’s music since her debut failed to make an impression with the majoritiy of record buyers and Laurnea went underground. She released the following albums II (released in 2000) and New Territory (2002) on her own respectively in Japan on JVC. Her fourth album, I Remember, has been available since October 2003 in Japan only via Universal Japan. Finally Dome Record will release I Remember on August 29, 2005 in the UK. And while usually the Japanese market gets bonus tracks on their domestic releases eventually an European release comes with two bonus tracks that haven’t been available before.
Laurnea has refined her singing, songwriting and production skills on this album once more and she has developed her own sound over the years.
Laurnea invited some of her friends for I Remember to add their musical input. She worked with (DJ) Kemit and Craig Love who also appeared on Laurnea’s previous albums. Plus she also met Davina who produced, co-wrote and orchestrated the soulful midtempo winner Love Peace. (And I was wondering recently whatever happened to Davina…good to see that she’s still making music).
Laurnea also knows India.Arie and finally they joined forces on Run Away and Doin’ It For Me, the latter also features India.Arie on background vocals. Run Away is a pleasant soul tune that floats magnificently on William Odum’s acoustic guitar play. Doin’ It For Me is Laurnea’s celebration of newly found independance and taking care of herself over a fine folk soul song.
Also worth mentioning is Laurnea’s collaboration with Angela Johnson on No Shame.
The biggest surprise, that show us a different side of Laurnea’s musical world of introspective soul, is one of the bonus tracks, the Kemit produced garage tune Sunshine.
Actually I needed a few listenings of I Remember to really understand Laurnea’s musical vision but finally I’ve discovered a beautiful album full of songs with personal and self-reflective songs.

[Note: Shanachie will release a best-of of Laurnea on September 20th, 2005, called The Collection. Laurnea will also share stage at Joe’s Pub in NYC with Anthony David on September 3rd, 2005, at 9:00 PM, please visit joespub.com and sistafactory.com for more infos.]

Tracklisting of I Remember: 1. Ain’t Nothing Wrong/ 2. I Remember/ 3. Who I Am/ 4. Doin’ It For Me/ 5. Trash/ 6. Runaway/ 7. Never Never (Interlude)/ 8. One Knight Stand/ 9. Love Peace/ 10. No Shame/ 11. I Don’t Know Why/ 12. This Is The Last Song/ 13. Lust (secret track)/ 14. Free Your Mind (Slipping)/ 15. Sunshine | released 2005 Dome Records

For more infos visit domerecords.co.uk.

[If you want to discuss Laurneá’s music, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]