Funky is the word for it, a silky, nuanced album dominated by Wonder's voice and wonderfully warm, wobbly bass. The rhythms are irritable (particularly the unstoppable roll on Jesus Children of America), everything syncopated enough to keep you forever tripping forward, building up to an album-scale high, higher and higher. The only missteps are the few overslow songs, like the criminally second-sequenced Visions, which kill the momentum.
There's something unplacably futuristic about this record, evoking Hancock circa headhunters, Beck at his smoothest, and Squarepusher at his most listenable. And by futuristic, I don't mean ahead of its 1973 release, I mean ahead of now, ahead of all time. There's a confidence here that can only be found in fearlessness, a fearlessness that can only come from knowing what's next. Stevie's a seer. He's seen the future and everything's going to be fine. As Stevie says, don't you worry about a thing 4/5
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