Straight to the front of Thursday, Jorja.
[Video][Website]
[6.12]
Hannah Jocelyn: I always like shouting out the engineers by name, and as soon as I played this and heard the scratchy, piano-led beat, I went on a search to find the answer. And I did; this is produced by a 26-year-old British DJ named Cadenza, and mixed/mastered (!) by a fairly new team called Engine-Earz. All involved did a fantastic job here, with equal amounts of space and punch. However, the fancy production sometimes threatens to overwhelm Jorja Smith’s melodies and lyrics, not giving the actual song room to breathe even as everything else has its place in the mix. It’s kind of a shame, because that titular line alone is brilliant, and the rest of the lyrics are almost “Vermillion“-esque in their simplicity and introspection. “Where Did I Go?” remains a success, even as the styles and aesthetics of everyone involved push against each other throughout.
[8]
Iain Mew: It’s a good audition tape for an impressive voice, but the best that can be said of the song otherwise is that it briefly evokes the late night fug the first verse is about.
[4]
Mo Kim: Usually I have little use for what I have personally deemed the “fast fashion four-on-the-floor” beat, but here it underlines the emotional core of the entire track; over plaintive piano flourishes, Smith circles through the feelings of a break-up, trying to figure out how she lost herself in something doomed to end. Only soon she’s turning the doubt and confusion onto the other person, the beat underneath pulsing like the heartbeat she’s holding onto to keep track of time; later, it falls out, leaving just a wistful “Goodbye” floating over the barren soundscape. There is electricity in the emotional push-and-pull, internal though it may be, and “Where Did I Go?” plays it up for all its bittersweet intrigue.
[8]
Ryo Miyauchi: “Where Did I Go?” sounds drained. The piano creaks. The drums are blown out. Jorja Smith’s voice is reserved to a worn-out sigh, that tiredness in her voice telling about her life experience more than words could. I like how her voice in the chorus expands the span of her days under the moonlight and sunrise as much as it contract it. The smallness of it frames the song as a story of a night spent with a mistake. But sometimes her chorus sounds deceivingly heavy, with those nights of regrets endlessly layered on top of yet another.
[6]
Megan Harrington: Plenty of raw material here, from her untrained but affecting voice to her #nofilter aesthetic, but “Where Did I Go” never rises above the level of sketch. This sounds like a bookmark or an underlined clause — something to return to, a thought unfinished.
[5]
Ramzi Awn: Cotton, The Fabric of Our Lives, could stand to give Jorja a call.
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: I’d actually been tipped off to Jorja Smith prior to the Sound of 2017 because this song was used in the first season of Issa Rae’s knockout HBO series Insecure. It fits in perfectly, as progressive R&B is fairly the vibe of the show (except when it’s going all up-in-the-club hip-hop), and this is questioning, curious stuff, based around acoustic piano and Smith’s gorgeous voice. I want more of this. Lots more.
[8]
Tim de Reuse: Smith is dynamic and expressive enough to carry the track on her shoulders, especially when she’s layered onto herself in loose, overlapping rhythms, pleasantly filling up space over the deliciously smooth instrumental — the stringy, creaky quality to her delivery doesn’t take long to wear thin, unfortunately.
[7]