CITIZENS ARREST — LUCY (Cooper B. Handy)
CITIZENS ARREST — LUCY (Cooper B. Handy)
LUCY—the solo recording project of multi-faceted songwriter Cooper B. Handy—has returned with the release of CITIZENS ARREST: an 18-track collection that, if you’re at all familiar with his other work under the moniker, tracks closely in its brevity and constant shifting with the behemoth Cooper B. Handy’s Album series.
On the surface, CITIZENS ARREST, like the volumes of tracks he’s amassed over the course of his work on the project, reads as a collection of demos. Handy moves just as quickly, and just as deftly, between a set of folk-inspired guitar ramblings, sparsely-rhythmed new wave tracks, and a series of indie instrumentals soaked in the hallmarks of cloud rap, as he ever has in his songwriting career.
But in the context of the bedroom-recorded vibes that saturate Handy’s work, what does it even mean for something to be a ‘demo’? To be left unfinished?
Paul Thompson, writing on Andre 3000’s recent project 7 Piano Sketches for POW Mag, attempted to define that term—albeit in an entirely different artistic context.
“The word sketch connotes a midpoint in the creative process, or a work that never reaches maturity… Because of the intense interest in his creative output—and because that output has slowed to a drip—the works in progress, the bits of art that would otherwise be seen as part of an ongoing practice, are instead scrutinized as finished pieces. Hence the static images of fingers working out a melody blowing away, no longer his, no longer under his control.”
In the case of hip-hop legend Andre 3000, the sketch itself is a subversion of expectations—ones that have been placed upon him externally since Outkast first called it quits with the release of Idlewild in 2006. Nowhere does Handy refer to his series of tracks as “sketches” in that sense, but there’s a clear, and likely an intentional, lack of polish here that begs that same sort of question.
CITIZENS ARREST is a showcase of Handy’s knack for knowing exactly when to pick up and put down an idea, for knowing how long to carry a sonic thread.
Very few of the tracks span much longer than two minutes, but the effect of the album, en masse, is an exploration in proximity. It sounds, at times, like Handy is singing from the back of a shrouded hallway—at others, like he’s breathing down the dew-speckled pop filter of the microphone. No matter what sort of production, or what sort of fragment, he chooses to run his hook-laden fingers over, though, there’s still a sense of immediacy: of a careful, bided urgency in place of the usually relaxed atmosphere that dominates these genres.
“FREE WORLD” is the most enticing track on the album, and it’s also the perfect encapsulation of what CITIZENS ARREST is capable of.
Over blocky piano tumblings and atmospheric textural layerings, Handy’s voice alternates between a distant echo and a reverberating refrain— “keep on rockin’ in the Free World”—that punctures through the haziness of the track itself, rupturing the filmic layer of distance that Handy’s production choices instill in the track itself. The whole thing runs at a length of just over two minutes, but the impression is lasting.
It’s not as though there’s nothing here worth fleshing out further. Many of these tracks, with an additional verse or an extended instrumental section, could easily run in the four or five-minute range. It’s simply that each track seems to be perfectly shaped as is—molded by the hands of an artist whose work is best expressed, at least in this form, in refracting fragments rather than spanning, cohesive bodies.
They are sketches, but not in the sense that connotes unfinishedness. CITIZENS ARREST, and LUCY’s discography as a whole, simply rests in that in-between space, reflecting a constant beauty and an unending creative nerve in the midst of its ever-sprawling process. It seems as though Handy is never unwilling to try his hand—to fit a hook into an unorthodox sonic cranny or forgo a verse entirely where he sees fit—if the sound, and the idea itself, appeals to him as an addition to his growing collection of tracks.
On CITIZENS ARREST, those efforts are, on the whole, wildly successful.