Katy B — Little Red

Rinse · Columbia · Sony | discogs.com

Streamlined and glassy, Katy B makes dance-pop personal

· · ·

I've never been able to wrap my head around the quantum shenanigans that govern the functioning of our universe at the tiniest levels. Physics Nobel laureate and noted clever boffin Richard Feynman aptly stated that if you think you understand them, then you don't.

Ours is a world filled with bizarre phenomena that we have yet to explain, some inspiring, others deeply frustrating.

For instance, it eludes me how such poor imitations of genuine literature as Dan Brown's bloated miscarriages could ever have attained the popularity that they did. The occasional misrepresentation of established facts of history and science is of course permissible in fiction; indeed it is actively encouraged. But not in books purporting to represent reality. To assault the unsuspecting reader so often, so blatantly and so flagrantly borders on the abusive.

So appallingly and brazenly false are these novels that the Catholic Church briefly paused its imperious pontificating to come together with CERN, which continued its vital and smashy research into particle physics, to denounce their representations Brown limply discharged onto page and screen. An intolerable air of smugness clings, rooted in what Brown appears to believe is cleverness, but what anyone paying attention can immediately identify as cold and clammy ignorance.

Beyond the realms of physics and literature, there is another strange universal constant that as yet defies explanation, and it is this: many singers hailing from outside the United States choose to swap their natural speaking accent for a bland Midwestern inflection the moment they step up to the microphone.

Londoner Katy B partially resists the temptation, to hypnotic effect. Her slick blend of typically smooth R&B and generally impersonal dance music has come to fine fruition on her second album. Unlike a certain turgid bibliography, Little Red is a master class in streamlining. There is not a note to spare, not a beat out of place among the pulsing synths, the nimble beats and Ms B's glassy delivery. Each track lasts exactly as long as it should.

Rarely does one come across a phenomenon like this — an album that lacks any apparent weakness.