Sa-Ra produced music throughout the 00's, for the likes of Erykah Badu, Common and other progressive R&B acts. This however is their first full length as Sa-Ra, and it fits perfectly into the confusing modern times we live in.
Sa-Ra come on like a hip-hop act, but can be seen as hip-hop in negative, with no upfront personality, plenty positivity and lack sharp edges, consistent with the haunted audio/wonky styles of electronic beat and ghost box music.
Their music is a mix of hip-hop, jazz, R&B, Soul, and funk; the hip-hop precedents are J Dilla, Kanye, Madlib, Outkast and Native tongues. However Sa-Ra look further back into psychedelic soul, Sun-Ra and most obviously Sly & the Family Stone. The whole album sounds a glorious dazed funk of analogue synths and overlapping themes and vocals, messages like 'you've got to take off your mask for me', 'walk into the sun', atoms splitting, a joyful noise' and ' I just wanna love today', are straight from the afro-future book of sun-ra and sly. Although Sa-Ra live in a post reagan/Bush Hip-Hop world and paranoid warnings abound, 'It's the Pnebonic plague, gotta get away', 'Here they come, dope mans on the block, better go and get your gun'. Unlike old school hip-hop though, these realities seem viewed through a hazy gauze al la Sly's 'I feel so good inside myself, don't wanna move'. The connection with psychedelic soul and the smiling faces trope is clear in the age of love, and they seem aware that this feeling won't last, more than that, it may be dangerous to let your guard down, 'did your daddy tell you that dreams can hurt you?'.
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