Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins: Lighthouse

Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins (a.k.a. Declaime) have worked together and separately for years now, trafficking in funk, soul, hip-hop, jazz, psychedelic space-rock, spoken-word poetry, protest music and more. But they've rarely combined all of the above as ambitiously as they do throughout their two albums as G&D; on the self-released The Lighthouse, the married couple engineers an overstuffed collision of concepts and genres while exploring the innumerable intersections of love, politics, spirituality, healthy living, parenthood and world citizenship.

The Lighthouse's 17 tracks are full of compelling fragments — interludes, asides, samples, songs that stop and start unexpectedly — all of which add up to a sort of funky, playful, Afrocentric idea salad. That's no surprise, given the innovative Las Vegas musicians' past affiliations; Declaime has worked with Madlib, Tha Alkaholiks, Flying Lotus, The Lootpack and more, while Muldrow's collaborators include Mos Def, Erykah Badu and Robert Glasper.

Muldrow and Perkins have spent their entire recording careers marinating in eccentric creativity — their own as well as others' — so it's no surprise that their work together has a full-to-bursting quality: As performers and producers, they shape-shift and reinvent with a relentlessness that's hard to contain on a single record. Thankfully, The Lighthouse (outMay 21) does its best, while still taking care to careen in countless directions at any moment.

-- by Stephen Thompson, NPR Music

Track List:

01. Intro

02. Lighthouse feat. LMNO & Shana Muldrow

03. Soulclap

04. Fam Bam

05. Electric

06. Power

07. Stand

08. No More War

09. Timeline

10. A Funk Supreme Vs. The Chemtrail Agenda

11. Popstopper

12. What

13. Dance

14. Emo Funk

15. Muthadear

16. The Word

17. Majesty