SHARON ROBINSON
Everybody Knows
(Sharon Robinson Music)
By Todd Lavoie
Sharon Robinson is one smooth deceiver. On first listen, the singer-songwriter’s silken soul meditations might easily billow on overhead in drifts of nerve-soothing R&B – but pull your ears a little closer, and you’ll see that there’s much, much more at work here than merely setting up some hot-whisper mood music for kicking back with a bottle of wine and your sweet thing on the sofa. Her new release, Everybody Knows, certainly succeeds in creating such ambiance, yes, but further inspection shows enormous depth and complexity across these 10 elegantly arranged songs.
This isn’t to downplay the burning sensuality that casts an amorous glow throughout the disc – only the most puritanical of listeners could miss, or deny, the extended come-hither of Robinson’s songwriting and self-production. Still, what ultimately resonates the most profoundly is the sense of haunting, of introspection, which burrows itself firmly among the satiny synth textures and jazz-informed midnight grooves.
Such a realization shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those already familiar with Robinson; the songwriter has been a longtime collaborator with Leonard Cohen, having co-written songs with him as well as producing his deliciously moody 2001 album, Ten New Songs (Columbia). (That’s her on the cover with him, by the way – an entirely appropriate sharing of the credit, too, given that her involvement included co-writing, arranging, electronic programming, and harmonizing throughout the recording.)