Southside Bottoms by Dawuna

With all of the upheaval of the past few years, many of us have become separated from the communities that nourish us, or those communities may have even disintegrated entirely. The new album Southside Bottoms by Dawuna unpacks the emotional life of these communities with an extremely delicate hand, using a lens of minimalist, experimental r&b to bring this extinct ecosystem to life. Stripped back to bare electronic bones, the instrumentals lend plenty of space to the mild, calculated vocal riffs that point back to more traditionally grandiose soul harmonies. All the while, crisp elements of electronic noise and field recordings help fill out the sound and bring the scene to life, pointing back to the realism of the album’s themes. Curiously, instead of looking at this past with nostalgic rose-tinted glasses, Dawuna gives the full breadth of experiences that these people shared, reminding us that these communities bring depth to our lives all around, in ways that bring us both pleasure and pain.