Peyton Booker started releasing understated and durable progressive R&B in the mid-2010s. A classically trained vocalist and violinist with a rich gospel background and bloodline, the Houstonian was in her late teens when she worked with
the Internet's
Steve Lacy on "Tell Me," and within a few years of that, her "Sweet Honey" and "Lifeline" played in episodes of Insecure. "Sweet Honey" attracted Stones Throw, Peyton's label home since 2019, the year she issued a sure-footed EP entitled Reach Out.
PSA, which is also preceded by an appearance on Blue Note pianist
James Francies'
Purest Form, among several other collaborations, is her debut Stones Throw album. That it ends with a consoling version of Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory's "Pure Imagination" -- rendered like folk-soul
Minnie Riperton in an echo chamber -- is entirely appropriate. A similar sanguine charm extends from almost all of the originals before it. There's a whispery lullaby about a hasty retreat from antagonists, and the fluttering "Big Flexer" can be heard as a sarcastic and amusing result of people-watching, but those are exceptions on a set that tends to deal in optimism and support of self and anyone in earshot. Peyton is squarely in the lineage of highly melodious and soothing voices like
Deniece Williams,
Amel Larrieux, and
Solange, but she makes it known here, however subtly, that she's an idiosyncratic creative force. Take the way she finesses "healin', "villain," and "superwoman" into a natural-sounding rhyme in "What Did I Do," an attempt to make amends over a production that uncoils and plinks like a dainty spin on late-'90s
Timbaland. Uncommonly alluring in "Don't You Wanna Fly," an offbeat pop-soul truffle, she could be singing about a mind-altering substance, herself, or a skateboard ramp. Most distinctive (and lyrically unambiguous) is "Tad Bit," a warped falsetto slow jam that at points sounds like it's actually jammed, on purpose, to prevent a moment of romantic promise from slipping away. Not far behind are the sad and sleek "It's Been So Long" and idyllic and in-love "Perfect Peach." The album is so intimate that the first letter of
PSA could also stand for personal or private. Its replayability can lead to companionship. ~ Andy Kellman