Music Monday! Tea and the 90's? Week of 4/12/21

Hello hello!

Last week, we went through a spiritual transformative journey in the outback with Harley as we paired tea with Flume's 'Hi This Is Flume' mixtape! While going through this soul-searching spiritual journey was heavy and transformative, we'll continue this week with another spectrum of electronic music. This week, we'll be diving into a modernized throwback to the 90's house with Sound of a Woman, a 2014 head-bopping album by Canadian artist Kiesza!

Music prodigy Kiesza brought back the 90's with a forward punch by reviving Haddaway, while putting her modern twist on the genera. Kiesza even supported this new re-branding of the '90s by covering 'What Is Love' with her jaw-dropping re-image of the song. With this, Kiesza also filmed the lead-music video for Hidaway with a freshly broken rib and powered through while promoting this album. So what makes 'Sounds of a Woman' such a fun pairing with tea time?

Dust off your boombox and dive right in!

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(Photo: Property of Island Records, a Division of UMG Recordings Inc.)

Album: Sound of a woman

Artist: Kiesza

Year: 2014

Primary Tea Pairing: Young/Fresh Sheng Puer

Secondary Tea Pairings: Black Tea or Green Tea

Kiesza throws us back to the early '90s with oversized jeans and crop-tops with room-filling sounds by opening the album with goofy sound-board dance floor beats that make you want to move with your session. While continuing where Haddaway left off, we continue this journey of 90's escapism by being thrown into another dance-anthem with a flair of seriousness, and cow-bell silliness. However, we come to a slow halt with the next few tracks to introduce nostalgic low-fi beats that made you want to be in a hazy room with LL Cool J and Tupac.

As this album progresses, everything comes to a halt with Kiesza's jaw-dropping reimaging of 'What is Love' by Haddaway. This cover not only stripped this 90's anthem to its bare bones, but it also blew a breath of fresh air to it and made it fresh again. Before gaining speed, this album gains traction as it continues to mosey along (while even sneakily throwing in a famous-guest appearance by the 'Orchestral Hit') before wrapping up with a piano-ballad that sums up the entire theme of the album - now that the fun and flirtation of our secret midnight lover has come to the surface, it's time to get serious and cut us loose. Despite the album wrapped up beautifully, we never wanting Kiesza's godly vocal performances and 90's retro-ism to be cut loose...

This album is fantastic to listen to with tea time because it not only reminds us to have fun in life, it makes it okay for us too. Distracting the chaos of our lives is not only fun, we can also enjoy doing so while being reminded that the music revolution in the early '90s can still be funky fresh in our world today. It'll also make you question why we pushed these fresh beats out of the soundscape to begin with. So turn on your kettle, turn the bass up, and be reminded that we can drown ourselves in another reality that's not just tea....

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~ The Oolong Drunk

"Blissfully Tea Drunk"