Throughout her decade-long solo career, Ndegeocello has explored disparate sonic territories -- from squiggly funk to free-foom jazz -- on her four previous solo albums. On last year's Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, Ndegeocello incorporated samples of speeches by activists like Angela Davis into her simmering sound. Her fifth album, Comfort Woman, out on Tuesday, shifts the focus to the personal, perfecting space-like, synthesized grooves.

"Cookie was one place," Ndegeocello says, "and now I'm in this place. This place is nice . . . I wanted to do something that made me feel good. A good offering into the world, a good vibration."

Comfort Woman is unabashedly a love album. It contains a trio of songs simply titled "Love Song #1," "#2" and "#3," and is only thirty-nine minutes long. "I wrote [the album] for someone I love very much," she says. "It's joyful and that's what I'm trying to find. Paradise. Just a little bit of comfort. I wanted to be a comfort woman."

Ndegeocello explains, "Everyone's trying to sell something, in order to make money, to give them this illusion of comfort, monetary comfort. I wanted to offer love as the comforting salve."

In her world, though, comfort doesn't mean complacency. Ndegecello next two projects push even further away from straightforward soul. With a group called Papillon that includes jazz heavyweights, Jack DeJohnette, Oliver Lake, Kenny Garrett and Soulive's Neal Evans, Ndegeceollo will release an improvisational jazz record called Dance of the Infidel in January. "Papillon is a great movie with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman," Ndegeocello explains. "It's about a guy who's always trying to get free and he doesn't realize that he's already free. It's like a smoke a blunt, chill record."

And after she wraps her current tour with Soulive, Ndegeocello plans to head back into the studio to record her next project, an Afro-punk record for British label BBE.

"It's going to be a mixture of the Clash and Bad Brains and Black Uhuru," she says. "Something that's totally different, harder and just not what people would expect for me."

Meshell Ndgeocello tour dates, with Soulive:

10/10: West Hollywood, House of Blues
10/11: Anaheim, House of Blues
10/12-13: San Francisco, The Fillmore
10/15: Denver, Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom
10/16: Minneapolis, Quest Club
10/17-18: Chicago, House of Blues
10/19: Detroit, Majestic Theatre
10/21: Burlington, VT, Higher Ground
10/22: Boston, Avalon
10/23: Hampton Beach, NH, Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
10/24-25: New York, B.B. King's Blues Club
10/26: Washington, DC, 9:30 Club
10/27: Philadelphia, Theatre of Living Arts
10/29: Ashville, NC, Orange Peel
10/30: Atlanta, Variety Playhouse
10/31: New Orleans, House of Blues
11/01: Austin, La Zona Rosa

BRIAN ORLOFF
(October 10, 2003)