Intimacy (Deluxe Version)

Editors’ Notes While “intimacy” is a word that gets bandied around in R&B circles, this album actually lives up to its title. With its cloaked velvet atmosphere and subtle instrumentation, Intimacy is closer to jazz and adult contemporary than it is modern R&B. Kem focuses on a vision that is entirely unique to him. Part of his appeal is his feminine presence. It’s not so much that his voice sounds like a woman — although it definitely veers towards the tender androgyny of Prince and Michael Jackson — but that he can be wholly vulnerable. Rather than make the listener come to him, Kem seems to approach and surround the listener’s psyche, his pliable voice seeping into the corners of the listener’s being. While parts of the album are in step with “neo-soul” artists like D’Angelo and Jill Scott (who guests on the percolating “Golden Days”), Kem seems more interested in reviving a much more subtle tradition, embodied by Anita Baker and Sade — female singers who possessed an almost supernatural vulnerability. The delicacy and elegance of Intimacy is less reminiscent of the club than it is a dance performance by Alvin Ailey or Bill T. Jones.