CD Review: Joy Ike, “Good Morning”

Joy Ike‘s first full-length album, “Good Morning”, is truly beautiful, with insight on life and the various directions in which it tends to go – whether down avenues constructed in one’s own mind, or detours influenced by outside behavior. Against themes of jazz and soul, Ike gifts listeners with a  practical optimism that accepts the deepest downs but allows room for hope, love, and perhaps a better understanding of the human condition. It’s almost as if the byline of “Good Morning” should be “Fact: We all breathe, bleed, eat, and incidentally are greater than the sum of our shortcomings”;  and yet, the beauty of it is that the listener is allowed to figure it out themselves.

Ike exhibits as much vitality and sophistication as artists who have been writing music for much longer than her three-and-a-half years. It is possible that listeners will catch themselves off-guard with lyrics that read straightforward on paper but are so structured to cling to musical phrases that they become unassuming in nature. In a manner similar to Tori Amos and Fiona Apple (standard greats that never should be considered as a lackluster comparison), Ike plays the piano almost like she’s taming an aggressive animal that rough-and-tumbles on occasion with the complementing percussion and strings. Ike also takes care to brand her work by utilizing her voice as an instrument as much as other accompaniments – an alluring personal touch to remember her by.

Even upon initial listen, “Good Morning” is an exceptional album if only for the fact that it is genuinely good. In both a universal and personal sense, it spins a strong yet delicate fabric from the most coarse feelings, while taking care to leave one’s mind in a slightly better state emotionally than when it found it. It’s just that good.

Recommended tracks: “Alone”, “Oh I Fight”, “Unconditional”

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