Album Review: Khodara Asks Listeners “Where’s Your Love?”

When you think of self-reflection, especially in terms of music, you think of serious. Usually, a heavier, ominous bassline or a wispy violin come into mind as a sonic indicators that in this song the artist is thinking about their life choices. Yet, Khodara shows through her Where’s You Love EP that a bright sound can equally induce self-reflection. Actually, “sunny” pop music can make you even more thoughtful by showing you that your light guides your path: not darkness. 

It makes sense that when we are and feel our lightest that we find our way though life better. How many times have we heard “Calm down, it will come to you!”, when we are trying to remember a thought or where we placed the keys again. In some ways, Where’s Your Love is Khodara saying to the world calm down as it tires to find the love it has lost. You would think a petition for the world to be more loving would have more a dramatic sound because it its lack of love has manifested into global drama.Yet, what make Where’s You Love is such a delicious, musical treat is that it is light. It feels like it was all made in Khodara’s breathing, like the music was inhaled and exhaled by her sprit before yours does the same.

Lyrically, Khodara calls for the world to be more caring and tender through her personal journey to be as such. A wise, spiritual move because if we are all interconnected then she cannot do for you, the listener,  whats she cannot do for herself. Thus, Where’s Your Love comes off like a studio session. diary, where Khodara was tasked to ask herself whether she has placed her heart fully into her relationships, her choices, and even herself. Yet, Khodara is not preachy, but simple in her lyrics and sound. She gives the soul a “sunnier edge” by serving its heartfelt questions and thoughts with a platter of uptempo, electro-beats.

There is not one track that you will not want to, at least, jazzercise to its rhythms. The first track, Where’s Your Love is smooth exhilaration as it makes you want to vogue through your house from its bouncing, twilighted synths. Khodara’s voice in the track, as well as the entire EP, feels like a cross between the 60’s and 80’s era of pop. Like in 60’s pop, she has the subtle hints of drama that allow her to deliver her deeper lyrics for the hints of emotionality they carry, while not overpowering the “danceability” of her song with too much sentimentality. Yet, she flips her voice and widens her range like the techno superstars of the 80’s, whom knew how to surprise listeners with a sudden, burst of energy through an octave change. Through this vocal blend, she manages to strike a balance between the spiritual vibes of soul with the “superficial” ones of pop. It is as if she is giving pop music the juicy taste it claims to have, by adding layers to its lyrics more than its sound. Thus, people can still dance to her music, but if they want to think to it, they can, as well. After all, pop music was made to make people dance, but soul was made for people to feel. Hence, you get the best of both worlds through Khodara’s Where’s You Love.