Say She She - Silver [Clear/Red Swirl]

The name is a joke you have to say out loud. "C'est chi-chi," as in "it's chic," a silent nod to Nile Rodgers that tells you most of what you need to know about where Say She She are coming from and how seriously they take themselves while taking the groove very seriously indeed. Silver, their second album, arrived in September 2023 on Karma Chief Records after a breakout run that turned a New York trio into one of the most talked-about acts in modern soul.

Piya Malik, Sabrina Mileo Cunningham, and Nya Gazelle Brown front the band, three voices that met the way New York bands are supposed to meet: following the music from downtown dancefloors through Lower East Side floorboards up to Harlem rooftops. Malik came up as a fixture on El Michels Affair records and a former backing singer for Chicano Batman, and the harmonic instincts all three bring turn what could be retro pastiche into something with real teeth. The whole 16-song set was written and cut live to tape at Killion Sound in North Hollywood with Sergio Rios of Orgone producing, and you can hear it in the room tone: warm, unfussed, everything captured in the moment rather than assembled after the fact.

Silver the element is the metal of self-confidence and the mirror of the soul, and the record leans into that. It is funnier and stranger than the debut, full of double entendres and punk-chic swagger, and it carries the wonky post-disco spirit of early '80s New York without ever sounding like a costume. Critics met it with near-universal praise.

Sixteen tracks across a double LP. Discodelic soul with a sense of humor and a killer rhythm section, pressed properly and built for volume.

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