“Out in the Black”
from the album Imaad Wasif
2006
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If you’ve heard of Imaad Wasif, it probably first happened when New York’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs announced he’d join them onstage as a second guitarist for the much-buzzed New York outfit. And because of this, you would probably assume Wasif’s solo material to be adjunct to Karen O.’s hyped-up Big Apple hipsterdom.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
Wasif, a onetime member of the New Folk Implosion and Alaska is more than a stylish guitar-slinger, as he proves on his self-titled solo debut. With a handle on sparse singer/songwriter material and spacious songwriting akin to Jeff Buckley or a stripped-down, coffee-shop version of the Veils, Wasif establishes himself as much more than a Yeah Yeah Yeahs accessory. Imaad Wasif is the sort of album you’d expect to find playing in a coffee-shop, but not in one of those disposable-cup, extra-expensive venti chain joints, but rather in that your favorite struggling, locally-owned coffeehouse with beat-up, comfy couches and sturdy porcelain cups.
Wasif proves to have an ear for the downbeat sort of melodies and loose songwriting that fit perfectly with a dark cup of joe. Tracks like “Fade in Me” and “Whisper” give Wasif the perfect vehicle for his strained but never tortured delivery to lead a folk track through the numbers without growing stale. “Coil” expands Wasif’s one-man approach to take in standup bass and strings, to find a balance between the Southern Gothic of acts like Munly or 16 Horsepower and traditional singer/songwriter material. Similarly, “(Dandelion)” and “Spark” stretch their legs and lope through folk-pop territory, gently hiding their melodic side behind haunting stretches of barebones simplicity.
For a guitarist like Wasif to plug in and take the stage with a crew of New York hipsters might seem like a non sequitur, but it’s only if you’re not paying this album the attention it deserves. Imaad Wasif handles folk and singer/songwriter material, but Wasif does it with attention to the little details that make this effort much more than a typical acoustic strummer. With that sort of versatility, it’s no wonder Karen O. tapped him as a hired gun.