There's the tender "Use Me" where he admits being nervous about having sex with the lights on. That touch of modesty colors most of Kaleidoscope Dream. But I'll be damned if it doesn't pull you in and make you feel it. It's definitively, deceptively simple, a nugget of concentrated sunshine, and not necessarily all that original. "Adorn" also showcases Miguel's secret weapon: modesty. He rockets off into falsetto for irresistibly brief moments, and a new outro spirals elegant, trained vocal gymnastics around the song's chorus. It's one of the giddiest love songs of the year, a track where ecstatic infatuation is hemmed in by Miguel's understated vocal dexterity, and this album feels like its proper context. Kaleidoscope Dream starts off with "Adorn", also found on the first Art Dealer Chic EP. And now, with his second full-length, he's delivered on that early promise. They also contained his best songs to date. Free and widely available, they earned him some well-deserved re-examination. Those mostly self-produced songs at times sounded like rough sketches, but they made it up for it by sounding personal and liberated from the demands of the industry.
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He returned earlier this year with a free trio of EPs under the self-conscious title of Art Dealer Chic, showing a newfound entrepreneurial sensibility and a streak of independence. It sounded like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to be a Salaam Remi faux-nostalgia crooner or a smart hip-hop crossover star, and the indecision hung over the record like a cloud (it didn't perform well commercially either). It’s no wonder this breakthrough LP led to sonic trysts with artists as wide-ranging as Kendrick Lamar, the Chemical Brothers, and Beyoncé.Miguel's 2010 debut album, All I Want Is You, was flanked with some stellar singles but weighed down by a lack of identity as he flitted from producer to producer. Whether he’s likening coitus to ballet (“Arch & Point”) or vamping with Alicia Keys over a tumbling drum loop (“Where’s the Fun in Forever”), Miguel proves himself a thrillingly unpredictable host. And then comes “Use Me,” where, over a plush blanket of grinding guitar, he cops to being nervous in bed. The next song, “Don’t Look Back,” lays shuffling ’60s pop over throbbing electro-house as Miguel warns a partner to run before the moon turns him into a womanizing beast. But Kaleidoscope Dream is not that album-and it’s better for it. To that last point, there’s “Adorn,” a tribute to wholehearted love that evokes Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and shows just how sweet a Miguel album of simple, throwback R&B would be. All of which tracks for a guy who grew up idolizing artsy types like Prince, Bowie, and Hendrix, but whose voice happens to sound like crushed velvet. Though just as sex-obsessed as the smooth lovermen who came before him, Miguel here projects a far more fractured and colorful view of romance tinted by deep self-reflection, hallucinogenic augmentation, and spiritual yearning. As a result, his second album not only sounded utterly singular-a swirling, moody mix of hip-hop, rock, and psychedelic soul-but it also placed the Southern Californian singer in a vanguard of new artists redefining the idea of the male R&B star (see also Frank Ocean, the Weeknd). With fizzled record deals and forced image makeovers in his past, a frustrated Miguel Jontel Pimentel took control of his career and creativity on Kaleidoscope Dream.
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