Fly

What you hear on Fly is Ono’s disarming combination of opacity and visceral, personal transparency in full bloom. It’s also one of the most unbridled, most captivating soul albums ever made. And that’s right where she wants you: Vulnerable, wide open to any-and-everything, ready to have your world tipped onto its head. She’s a master of spinning your head around. First, you get the Bar Band from Hell of Midsummer New York to kick things off. It’s about the last thing you’d expect from Ono coming off Plastic Ono Band. But here you are, listening to Ono channeling Elvis. At 16-minute-plus, the tranced-out, motorik-inspired boogie Mind Train is rough-and-ready for your next basement get down. Movement and perspiration required. Ono’s band of session heavy hitters burrows deep in a sort-of locomotive raga while Ono’s punchy vocables and rhythmic syllables do interpretive dances around one another. If Ono’s voice were Miles Davis’s trumpet, Mind Train might