Possessions and Obsessions

By Parallel Dance Ensemble

Words by Charlotte Trenbath feat. an interview with Robin Hannibal

Possessions and Obsessions is an album that runs on pure impulse. It grooves and shakes through all of life’s external pleasures, swaggers in the hazy void of humanity’s shadow; it’s a self-indulgent, chaotic work of art.

Parallel Dance Ensemble is in fact not an ensemble at all. Made up of rapper Coco Solid and producer Robin Hannibal, the name is inspired by where Hannibal was living at the time – Para Il, Barcelona.

According to Hannibal, Possessions and Obsessions was the product of a music academy sponsored by RedBull, held once a year to give applicants the opportunity to use studios and create their own music. Jess, known by the stage name Coco Solid, was also a participant, and the two hit it off straight away.

‘I think she’s incredible at finding a topic, like in Shopping Cart, and having an angle with it. To write it from that perspective and make it into a boogie, disco song was brilliant. 100% credit to her, she suggested that.’

Shopping Cart opens the album with immediate groove, a jaunty two-step straight into the weird and wonderful world crafted by Solid and Hannibal. Solid tells a story from the perspective of a woman who loves to fill her shopping cart – and refuses to pay at the till.

She was a woman of ambition/ She had goals, she had vision/ She knew the boys who cut the check/ Who put the sparkles on that neck.

Solid’s storytelling bears no denial of the pleasures of abundance, nor does it advocate for them. Shopping Cart’s titular character is wrapped in moral ambiguity; she’s driven, resourceful, intelligent, but she’s also cold, shallow, and manipulative. She is as all humans are – multi-faceted, layered, and imperfect.

The music was inspired by Tom Tom Club, a side project of Talking Head’s Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. Hannibal noted that, ‘There was another guy in the band, a French-African keyboard player called Wally, who was invited to the same music sessions as me.’

‘I had made the piece of music a couple days before he arrived, and when I played it for him, he said, “this reminds me of a project I did in the early 80s called TomTom Club.” I just thought, “yes! I have arrived!”'

Juices, the album’s third track, is a sauntering, lust-littered exploration of power as an aphrodisiac. Coco Solid’s lyrics embody a shameless desire, delivered with an attitudinal assertiveness that bounces along to Hannibal’s pulsing beats.

Speaking about the track, Hannibal said, ‘We enjoyed using these symbolic, metaphorical topics, but then the music video [for Juices] is about different fruits being chopped and blended, though that’s not really what it’s about.’

‘It’s trying to talk about more serious matters, but only if you want to access that, only if you want to dive in and have that experience. And if you don’t, that’s cool, just enjoy it. Take it as three minutes of fun.’

Juices is arguably the most fun-filled three minutes on the whole album, boasting a sultry kind of playfulness that’s especially individual to the track. Solid’s delivery is exactly how you’d expect it to be, buttery smooth with an enticing softness that resists submission.

Occupied is a track that crawls through the aimless. Paired with a mellow instrumental, Hannibal’s character portrays a certain apathy towards his presumed lover.

Think of him as a psychological architect, wrapping his words around the stony walls of disjointed beats, sheltered within his feeble declarations of carelessness.

I’m trying not to think it through/I’ve really got a lot to do/ I’m tryna stay occupied/Don’t think that you are on mind.

But his foundations prove to be brittle, and, upon collapse, the song floats up into ethereal truthfulness; it breathes catharsis out of blackened lungs, releasing a wounded heart from its very core.

Thinking ‘bout you day and night/ Won’t you trust me/ I’m thinking ‘bout her day and night.

The track is described as ‘sort of the classic arc of a lot of relationships, that thing of who is in control. Not to say that all those power dynamics are toxic, but I think that the true love is when you don’t have to play games anymore.’

Possessions, the album’s half-title-track, opens with minimal sound, highlighting Solid’s mantra, which is repeated in every chorus.

Possessions don’t touch you in your heart/ Possessions only tear you apart/ Possessions cannot kiss you goodnight/ Possessions will never hold you tight.

Thirteen years after the album’s release, the words feel as poignant as ever. Hannibal gives a fitting explanation; ‘Overall there is a main topic about how we look at life, how we need to own things, when, really, we don’t own anything.’

‘We can’t take anything with us to our grave, and yet we’re so obsessed with possessing all these different pieces as our measuring stick of success and life.'

There’s a certain satisfaction in experiencing how such a topic gets packaged into 35 minutes of uplifting dance music, an irony that Solid and Hannibal ‘really quite enjoyed.’

It was a work of ‘love and enjoyment’, crafted without constraints on time or creativity – and it shows. The way in which Hannibal’s seismic sounds pair with the formidable storytelling from Solid is nothing short of transcendent.

Immediately you are transported into a helter-skelter of fascinating, complex characters who lose themselves in everything but themselves. And you will likely do the same, mindlessly shimmying and shuffling along to cure your Monday blues.

This is Possessions and Obsessions on the surface – an escape. The blissful paradox of the album is that it criticises the very same thing it encourages, and this nuanced attitude is what makes the LP so original.

In the words of Hannibal, ‘They’re momentary pleasures and they don’t have that depth – but that’s the juices.’