In addition to his work as a background vocalist for a bunch of gospel and R&B legends, Loren Oden has been an essential player on many Adrian Younge projects dating back to the producer's score for Black Dynamite. An Oden-Younge highlight reel would have to include Black Dynamite's "Shot Me in the Heart," Venice Dawn's "Turn Down the Sound," Bilal's "Money Over Love," and the Midnight Hour's "There Is No Greater Love," just for starters. Oden also co-wrote some of those songs, foreshadowing what he could do as a lead artist. For My Heart, My Love, his first album, he gets Younge's deluxe Linear Labs Studio package. In his workshop of vintage gear, Younge produces, engineers, co-writes, and provides almost all the instrumentation, and calls upon familiar collaborators such as Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jack Waterson to pitch in a little. Tautly arranged duets and group background vocalists are common on Younge productions, but they're limited this time to a number featuring Estelle (which doesn't generate nearly as much heat as, say, Oden and Karolina's connection on the Midnight Hour's "Feel Alive"). With very rare exception, the only voice is that of Oden, fronting everything and often supporting himself, adept as ever at switching between expressions of love, grief, consolation, and devotion with little evident exertion. On much of his best earlier work, Oden was basically playing roles, so it's gratifying to hear him go in a personal direction to ardent effect. The tenderest and most open song of all is "Words to Say," a glowing ballad showcasing Oden's upper register atop an 808 drum pattern, strings, and the singer's sensitive Fender Rhodes vamp. "Don't Be," sweet as can be with a tipsy gait, is something like a dream Brothers Johnson/D'Angelo crossover. Most of the rest offers slight variations of Younge's filmic, hip-hop-minded take on late-'60s/early-'70s psychedelic soul, exemplified here by the romantic "Galaxies," the appreciative "Queen," and the Brazilian-tinged glider "Is There a Way." ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi

1		My Heart, My Love
2		Galaxies
3		Is There a Way
4		Words to Say
5		Addicted
6		Queen
7		Don't Be
8		All Roads
9		Waiting For
10		Matters of the Heart
11		A Somber Sonnet
12		The Moment
13		Timeless Answers
14		Frequency