Day Soul Exquisite's Genre-Bending 'Sanguine and Cardamom' Centers Identity, Healing, and Groovy Rhythms

by Jas Keimig

Drawing from a wide range of influences, the eclectic Seattle-based, QTBIPOC-fronted sextet Day Soul Exquisite melds R&B, bossa nova, neo-soul, psychedelia, and jazz into a delicious, genre-bending music concoction. And on Friday, Jan. 19, the group is finally releasing their debut five-song EP, Sanguine & Cardamom, on lead singer Francesca Eluhu's independent La fem records with Den Tapes handling the cassette release.

Centered around healing, the album articulates the colliding emotions and experiences that being queer and of color brings at this particular moment. And they will be debuting the record to a sold-out crowd at the Clock-Out Lounge this Saturday, Jan. 20, with two other Seattle bands, La Fonda and Breaks and Swells.

When I met up with them on a recent evening at Lottie's in Columbia City, it was kinda like meeting a giant family. Gathered around a round table in the busy bar, the musicians chatted together, giggled at each other's jokes, and shared chips and salsa. "When I met everyone, I felt like I'd known them forever," said vocalist, guitarist, and front person Francesca Eluhu, reflecting on their first meeting and looking around at her bandmates.

Day Soul Exquisite formed in 2021, shepherded together by Eluhu who kicked off a bandmate search the old-school way — by plastering flyers around the Central District calling specifically for musicians of the QT/BIPOC experience and listing a bunch of band influences. "The Internet to my Syd, the Hiatus Kaiyote to my Nai Palm, Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, Mos Def," Eluhu remembered the poster reading. "I think I had the Pixies on there. I'm not even a huge Pixies fan, but I was trying to spread influences across genres."

She ended up connecting with their drummer Josh Pherson through the flyers, and over the next couple of weeks, met bassist/guitarist/vocalist Zora Eliana Seboulisa and keys/bassist Lillian Minke Tahar through mutual friends, saxophonist Xiomara Mills-DuPree at a jam session, and percussionist Thomas Arndt at a record release. Since they all came together just after the deepest part of quarantine, their early rehearsals were about finding their shared musical and artistic language as well as forming a community around the project.

"There was no 'I want to create this style of band, I want to play this style of music,'" Arndt reflected about the band's origin. "It was, 'I want to play music with people I really connect with deeply.' And so it's all been driven by what happens when we all sit down and start playing together."

That sense of care, identity, and personal history suffuses the band's work. Eluhu's French-Caribbean and Congolese background informs many of their songs, with the vocalist incorporating French on the dreamy, psych-influenced "Futures" off their new album. As a classically trained musician, Mills-DuPree was used to rigor, but with Day Soul Exquisite gets to experience a bit more freedom when it comes to their instrument. "I've never played the way I play in this band," Mills-DuPree reflected. Juggling the skills of six musicians and crafting their songs involves a lot of discussion and introspection.

"One of the coolest things about our process is how truly collaborative it is," said Tahar. "I've learned a lot from everyone in this band and I think we can all say that. Just through approaching the songwriting process, it's about the curiosity of each other's musical tastes."

"We all have a lot of different influences too, so that definitely feeds into the music," Eluhu added. "We like to genre bend. We like to play something that isn't stereotypically in one genre."

"Genre anarchy!" Tahar exclaimed.

Sanguine & Cardamom places the band's musical talents and lyrical prowess front and center. Jazzy album opener "Disentangle" starts out quiet. Mills-DuPree's sax softly squiggles over light percussion when Ehulu's rich, velvet voice careens onto the track and discusses loving yourself despite adversity. "Like a spider despised, can't rewrite history," she sings. "Yonic" gives a heavy 2000's neo-soul-on-the-radio vibes, a joyous, sensual ode to masturbation. Closer "Abattoir" — which means "slaughterhouse" in French — reckons with police violence in America, written in response to the murder of Breonna Taylor at the hands of cops. The track is buoyed by Tahar's melodic work on the keys and Mills-DuPree's deft sax work before it implodes in percussive chaos halfway through, a musical expression of the frustration with the racist, violent police state we live under.

Written primarily by Eluhu and Seboulisa, the album takes cues from poets like Sonia Sanchez and Audre Lorde to explore what it means as a queer Person of Color to heal from trauma, find joy in body liberation, and respond to systemic oppression. That intentionality is most clear on mid-album song/poem "Sum Of Our Parts," where Seboulisa beautifully meditates on what it means to be fetishized as a Black queer person. "They taste me and navigate to my consumption/Feast on sanguine and cardamom," she croons over a delicate guitar plucking. "Bury their teeth in the most intimate parts of my being/yet their eyes refuse me."

On Sanguine & Cardamom, Day Soul Exquisite is at once playful and perceptive with their unique, effervescent understanding of jazz and neo-soul that they move through with ease, inviting listeners on their journey through movement, sound, and self.

Day Soul Exquisite's "Sanguine & Cardamom" drops on Friday, Jan. 19 on La fem records — you can buy it on their Bandcamp or pick up a cassette from Den Tapes. Their Saturday, Jan. 20, show at Clock-Out Lounge is sold out, with limited tickets at the door, but you should check their website for any upcoming show dates.

📸 Featured Image: Seattle band Day Soul Exquisite are debuting their new EP, "Sanguine & Cardamom," to a sold-out Clock-Lounge Lounge this Saturday, Jan. 20. (Photo: Lily Wenbao, courtesy of Day Soul Exquisite)