shirlette ammons Defies Musical Barriers

Language Barrier is the second album by the activist, musician and poet shirlette ammons, and the first on the SugarQube label that she started with her twin sister Shorlette Ammons. (I’m assuming Shorlette was born first and hogged all the capital letters.) The title of the album could just as easily be “No Language Barrier,” because it shows ammons and a varied cast breaking through the walls that attempt to separate one musical style from another. So the opening of the album, a track called “Earth Intro Segue,” features shirlette’s rapped verse over stuttering electric guitars that hint at the post-punk explosion to come when the actual “Earth Intro” follows. The latter, a song featured on our weekly music roundup back in December, includes vocals by the best-selling folk/rock duo Indigo Girls – the first in a stellar lineup of (mostly female) guest artists.

Four of the album’s tracks are preceded by “segues,” which serve as preludes of a sort and which do in fact segue into the following songs. In “Language Barrier Segue,” shirlette is joined by the Berlin rapper sookee, a leading figure on the queer music scene in the German capital. sookee’s verse, in German, comes first, and concludes with a line that translates as “Watch word building bridges, barriers burst like soap bubbles.” shirlette ammons picks up that theme in her verse, which includes the lines: “Now we burning them bridges amidst the broken and brilliant/watch the barriers burst like bubbles scaling a building.” And when the “segue” leads directly into the song “Language Barrier,” we get the repeated chant “let me take your barriers down, down, down!” It’s a statement of intent, both musical and personal, and comes atop a guitar riff that sounds like it could have been written 50 years ago.

The shape-shifting continues throughout the album: Meshell Ndegeocello is featured in the album’s most pop-inflected, optimistic number, called “Dear Nora,” and Amelia Meath, half of the electropop band Sylvan Esso, lends her distinctive vocals to the driving, prog-tinged rock of “Aviator.” Other guests include Hiss Golden Messenger, the country/folk rock band led by MC Taylor, and Heather McEntire of Mount Moriah. The music was written by Daniel Hart, who’s probably best known for his film scores but who has toured with St. Vincent, Polyphonic Spree, and many others. Here, he does well to keep the sonic surprises coming right to the end: after all the excursions into fractured hip-hop, rock, and R&B, the album concludes with a gentle, acoustic chamber-pop song called “Travel Light,” featuring Phil Cook of Megafaun. There’s a North Carolina connection between ammons and many of her guests, but in keeping with the idea of breaking down barriers, this is music that will travel easily.