Kali Uchis Red Moon in Venus

Full of woozy synths that shift tones lower and lower, melodic bass and sharp electronic percussion, the album does much more than set the mood; it serves you ...

The sensual “Moonlight,” the latest single, is the closest Red Moon in Venus comes to a title track and sets up album closer “Happy Now”—an upbeat pop song! The album then returns to candlelight territory on “Endlessly” but detours into revenge territory on “Moral Conscious,” a spacey jam where Kali Uchis sings about karma coming for someone who’s transgressed. “Not Too Late” then leads into the album’s second half highlights: “Blue” is accented by a lonely saxophone and Uchis’ hushed spoken-word delivery that contrasts her evocative singing. That’s followed by another highlight in “Fantasy,” featuring rapper Don Toliver, which kicks off the song with a warbling croon over detuned piano strokes before Uchis joins in for the duet. The latter tune is especially a jam, picking up the pace temporarily. While the song is unique from the preceding one, highlighted by twinkling organ keys and funky bass, it feels like a continuation; opening a new door after letting one shut.

The neo-soul artist's non-linear third LP covers a range of relatable emotions tied to the life cycle of a relationship.

On Red Moon in Venus, Kali Uchis plays with themes of love and heartache that aren’t necessarily new, but she makes them feel new by stringing them altogether in a non-chronological way. Walker and Uchis, on the other hand, together ooze raw femininity in all of its glory and power. Her song with Summer Walker, “Deserve Me,” has a similar energy in that both vocalists seem to be taking their power back after heartbreak.

On her lush and captivating third album, the pop star looks to the heavens, summoning the cosmic power of love and the divine feminine.

[Don Toliver](https://pitchfork.com/artists/don-toliver/), is an Afropop dance number that ends the infatuation seen in the first half of the record. “Wanna spoil me in every way/It’s Valentine’s like every day,” she sings at the top of the pop-funk highlight “Endlessly.” Rose-tinted glasses? [Isolation](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kali-uchis-isolation/), then took that expansive versatility to the left on the Spanish-language album [Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otro Demonios) ∞,](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kali-uchis-sin-miedo-del-amor-y-otros-demonios/) where she prescribed love as a powerful anti-anxiety medication. Chirping birds, blooming flowers, and professions of love pepper “In My Garden” and lead single “I Wish you Roses,” two tender devotionals that set the album’s faithful vision of love ablaze. She perfected a blend of R&B and pop on her acclaimed debut It’s this emblem of burning intensity and divinity that guides the genre-defying Colombian-American pop star

The Colombian-American pop star's third LP is a lush, emotive confection of soft-focus R&B that delves into the 28-year-old's love life.

Over a vintage soul confection, Uchis travels through heartache, finishing somewhere near desolation: “What’s the point of all the pretty things in the world, if I don’t have you?” Things end, however, with resolution on the sun-dappled, 60s soul of Happy Now, in which Uchis urges herself to “remember all the good things”. The bilingual Hasta Cuando, punctuated by 80s drum fills, sees Uchis rap-singing delicious kiss-offs (“paint me as the villain if that makes you feel better”), while the head-knocking Deserve Me comes as close as she gets to musically confrontational. Elegant lead single I Wish You Roses – its swirling chorus as soft as candy floss – promises a love that’s deep enough to weather any storm, while on the woozy All Mine, Uchis longs to stay in her loved-up cocoon: “I hate your phone, throw it away,” she pleads.

She leans hard into the feminine here, gentle melodies that trip up and down the octaves over smooth, sensual beats and harp strums. It's a hypnotic haze, an ...

Uchis has spoken of her love for 60s soul and R&B and that’s certainly evident here, but there’s also an 80s feel in the sparkling synths and glittering, lovelorn melodies. “Como Te Quiero Yo” (which translates to “How I Love You”) marries the two in a bilingual sex jam littered with erotic moans and a request “Can we make up?/ All night, all day”. This is a gorgeous swoon of a record from Colombian-American musician Kali Uchis.

R&B and reggaeton shaded into electropop and hip-hop soul, accompanied by a well-recruited set of guests including Jorja Smith, Tyler, the Creator and Steve ...

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“It's Valentine's like every day,” sings Kali Uchis on the infatuating 'Endlessly', a lovey-dovey funk track that summarises this swoonworthy third studio ...

[Kali Uchis shares new track ‘I Wish You Roses’](https://diymag.com/news/kali-uchis-i-wish-you-roses) [Kali Uchis releases new track ‘Moonlight’](https://diymag.com/news/kali-uchis-moonlight) A few smokier moments of trap pop elsewhere add attitude (see ‘Moral Conscience’ and ‘Deserve Me’ with Summer Walker).

As Kali Uchis previously explained of her third album 'Red Moon in Venus,' this latest body of work is intended to represent “all levels of love.”

Red Moon in Venus follows 2020’s Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios), which went on to snag a Grammy nomination and appeared on numerous year-end lists. “Love is the message,” Uchis previously said of the new album. The features are also carefully spaced out across the album’s tracklist, further contributing to the expert world-building on display here.

Her voice might be soft, the sound might be sexy, but the lyrics on 'Red Moon in Venus' make it clear: Kali Uchis is no baby doll.

There are plenty of references here — “Blue” is the best Sade song since the last Sade album (complete with a “Smooth Operator” sax in the distance), and “Love Between” has a ‘70s Philly soul vibe that recalls Silk Sonic’s retro fetish — but those are passing glances. But despite that polyglot team, the vibe and sound are diverse but unified: clearly Uchis herself is setting the tone and calling the shots. [Kali Uchis](https://variety.com/t/kali-uchis/) has been nominated in three unusually far-reaching Grammy categories: R&B performance, dance recording and musica urbana abum, the latter for her sultry 2020 Spanish-language second full-length, “Sin Miedo (Del Amor Y Otros Demonios).” And in the 11 years since “Drunken Babble,” her awesomely titled first mixtape, Uchis has collaborated with Tyler, the Creator, SZA, Gorillaz, Snoop Dogg, Mac Miller, Steve Lacy, Rico Nasty, Kaytranada (their collaboration on “10%” scored her the Grammy dance win), and lots of others — but her biggest hit is her own “Telepatía,” which was the first song by a female solo artist to top Billboard’s Latin songs chart in almost a decade (and [earned her the Crossover award at Variety’s 2021 Hitmakers](https://variety.com/2021/music/musicians/kali-uchis-telepatia-sin-miedo-latin-crossover-1235124467/)).