Brockhampton

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2022 IS BACKLOADED | 2022-11-17

Any calendar year’s fourth quarter act invariably sprouts summational thinking on the part of music pundits the world over, thrusting them into cynically whittled down crop of best (and worst…) of new music as if their life depended on it. As it turns out, 2022 appears to be making said faux-editorialized process ever so slightly more difficult, by virtue of above-average quality drops peppered throughout the last two eligible months of October and November. We’d go as far as to claim that the current one might be the most backloaded revolution around the sun in semi-recent memory—potentially of the last decade. This essay sets out to highlight a round up of but a few of the miscellaneous late-into-the-year releases standing to corroborate and qualify such advanced hypothesis. And to think it’s doing so without exhibiting other potential heavyweight honourable mentions worthy of making the cut, such as the intelligently composed and astutely assembled The Car by the Arctic Monkeys, Freddie Gibbs‘s aspirational glam rap opera $oul $old $eparately, and Canadian treasure Neil Young‘s self-effacing fifteenth studio album with Crazy Horse, World Record. Or even Taylor Swift’s open-hearted confessional Midnights, rounding up with Nas’ latter-day-high King’s Disease, attained via his third cold-blooded single-handed trilogy instalment.

A subdued and unsuspecting mid-October Friday saw the return of exquisite Mississippi-hailing singer/songwriter Cory Branan, who with his latest 11-track exploit When I Go I Ghost fiercely put an end to a five year mouthwatering musical drought, dating back to his last studio body of work: 2017’s mixed bag Adios. Unlike his previous, his newest record is a superlative exercise in no frills alt country and then some—flirting equally exuberantly with blue collar heartland rock (particularly on lead single “When In Rome, When In Memphis“, but also on “Room 101” and “Come On If You Wanna Come”), heavy garage rock (“When I Leave Here”), as well as lightweight power pop (“One Happy New Year”). It might be stating the plain as far as the Branan-initiated are concerned, but one of the sharpest traits that sets him apart from the dime-a-dozen pack of mainstream-adjacent country exponents is his refined lyrical sensibility, exhuming a supremely distilled ability to sound both emotionally relatable and eruditely unrivalled at the same time.

When I Go I Ghost is no exception in how it launders and delivers witty quotables and earnest diaristic entries alike—all set to carefully curated rootsy sonic backdrops, relying primarily on Branan’s still criminally underrated guitar playing, as well as sparsely interwoven keys of all strands. Frankly, each of the eleven records sequenced on the project could warrant at the very minimum one sampled litmus test, yet we’ll limit the textual road show to just a few here. Start with “O Charlene“‘s sudden lightheartedness of surrender, which might be one of the most unexplored themes in rock music—especially by men: “Cause the birds are still singing and the sun still burns / Swing low, diminishing returns / And I’m finally done with all my trying to get it right / I drink a flat Coca Cola in the cold sunlight“). Meanwhile, “That Look I Lost“‘s romantic ambivalence, doubling as one of the stickiest refrains on the album, makes for an all too familiar internal struggle to those fighting back their natural ageing inertia: “And I’ll spend the rest of my life / Dying to find / That look I lost, that look I lost / Dying to find that look I lost in her eye“.

Another unassuming dark horse eruptively claiming high altitude spots on many a year-end lists in 2022 has got to be The Loneliest Time, 36-year-old Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen’s sixth studio album. On our part, we did our best by warning Interweb argonauts about CRJ’s impending pop doom ahead of time, but boy did the feast not disappoint. Hitting the shelves one week after Branan on 21st October, the Interscope-corralled set of synth-pop galore aptly packs thirteen anthemic vignettes of prima facie alienated melancholic catchiness. Case in point, third promo single leading up to the full release, “Talking to Yourself“, culling the immediate resonance and impact of few other modern pop cuts. Everything from its slick and glossy production to the undeniably familiar verse-pre-chorus-bridge-chorus leitmotiv is bona fide song crafting perfection. In the same breath, “Joshua Tree“, at number two on the tracklist, dabbles as much in pop rock instrumentation as in synthetic pop incantation, only to fold before the melted cheese stickiness of its refrain: “I need it (Da, da-da-da-da-da) / I feel it (Da, da-da-da-da-da) / I see it (Da, da-da-da-da-da) / I know it (Da, da-da-da-da-da) / I own it (Da, da-da-da-da-da) / I show it (Da, da-da-da-da-da)”.

Jepsen—who on The Loneliest Time enjoyed studio co-signs from behind-the-scenes songwriting royalties Rostam Batmanglij and Alex Hope, as well as her longtime collaborator Tavish Crowe—is the type of music creator who can disguise a quasi-interlude into one of the strongest takeaway from a premiere body of work (“Sideways“), in spite (or precisely because of) sugary and borderline cringeworthy verses such as “One more cutе disaster / Said, ‘I love you’ twice / Bеfore you could even answer / It’s hard here in paradise“. Contemporaneously, the Grammy-nominated artist is one to sequence absolute album standout “Bad Thing Twice” as late as number ten on the record’s D-side, willingly entering into the risk of leaking potential listenership along the way before delivering a masterclass in Dua Lipa-like heartbreak slapper material. Sonically and thematically, The Loneliest Time is such a resiliently robust collection of songs; one’d be hard-pressed to spot a lull moment or snoozer on this thing (perhaps “So Nice” on an antonymic day?). Even its pocket of digital-only bonus tracks is worth sticking around for.

Surely, the heaviest name to drop on this year’s backload is Bruce Springsteen‘s, whose 21st studio album Only The Strong Survive sees him interpreting custom solo renditions of fifteen classic soul exploits. Stemming from the storied and iconic back-catalogues of Motown, Gamble & Huff, Stax, and similar fixtures, these recordings double as The Boss’s second collection of covers to date (following the Grammy-winning We Shall Overcome in 2006). By his own admission, the handpicked selection of evergreen R&B tunes enabled the 73-year old “to make an album where I just sang. […] I’ve taken my inspiration from Levi Stubbs, David Ruffin, Jimmy Ruffin, the Iceman Jerry Butler, Diana Ross, Dobie Gray, and Scott Walker, among many others.” Further elaborating on the revisited creative concept through a dedicated announcement clip, the OG New Jerseyan declared: “I’ve tried to do justice to them all—and to the fabulous writers of this glorious music. My goal is for the modern audience to experience its beauty and joy, just as I have since I first heard it. I hope you love listening to it as much as I loved making it.”

As far as the lead up to the full release on 11th November was concerned, the initial electric sprawl and edginess of “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)“, originally written and performed by Frank Wilson in 1965, gave way to the beloved Commodores classic “Nightshift“—easily one of the album’s pièces de résistance, and an improbable rendition for the heartland rocker to hop on if there ever was one. It’s arguably on this track, more than any other in this retro crop, that Springsteen reached a vocal apex insofar as how clear, tight-commanded, and ebullient his windpipes sound. The watertight and sturdy “Don’t Play That Song” served as the final advance preview for the project, turning a bona fide chart-topper originally authored by Ahmet Ertegun and Betty Nelson (later popularized by Aretha Franklin in 1970) into a carefree brass fest set to Bruce’s cheeky yet wholly believable croonerisms. Elsewhere on the record, “When She Was My Girl“, “Turn Back the Hands of Time“, and “I Forgot To Be Your Lover” stand as further unmissable highlights—decisively turning Only The Strong Survive into an unavoidable candidate in any AOTY race.

At long last, on 17th November trailblazing and envelope-pushing LA boyband BROCKHAMPTON found good riddance of its interior demons by demystifying unreasonable longevity expectations for a coming-of-age group of a dozen through the purge of their swan-song, The Family. Just about making this year’s consideration’s cut, this is the Kevin Abstract-led group’s seventh and final album in six years. It follows their 2021 bloated mixed bag ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE, and rides on the sappy coattails of their hiatus announcement at the beginning of this year. In keeping with the San Marcos, Texas-gestated collective’s unhinged explicitness, lead feline single “Big Pussy” came through from out of left field with a sprawling and out-of-control free jazz instrumental hold, shape-shifting into patch-worked tape-montage wizardry, only to feature the sole Abstract on the mic—much like on the rest of the project—dishing out inflammatory 16s about finessing unfulfilled record deals (“The label needed thirty-five minutes of music“) and the wedges of fandom (“The show is over ni**a, please stop harassing me / Stop asking me, it’s bad enough for me to deal with this tragedy / On my own“).

You guessed it: The Family packs a blitzkrieg 17 records into, well, 35 minutes of runtime—mind you, with as many as ten joints in the bag not even reaching the two minute mark. Everything but the kitchen sink notwithstanding, the off-the-wall raison d’être that has permeated the collective’s MO since its inception seems to take a time-out breather on the subdued and soulful “The Ending“. Dropped just a handful days before release date as conclusive project teaser, the intermezzo is less a fully-fledged single than a semantic coda sermon to BROCKHAMPTON‘s erratic conduct. Sequenced as penultimate offering on the tracklist, sandwiched between the raucous bareness of “My American Life” and their eponymous coda’s blistering prowess, such a concluding triptych makes for a momentous and poignant finishing. Before it, baked somewhere in there is another candid half-hour of heart-on-sleeve primordial soup of boundless hip-hop virtuosity, albeit Abstract-only. At any rate, it’s the last exhibit of a tail end of album drops amounting to as much as any other year top 10’s worth of material, coming to fruition in the last two months of the year alone—if a rising tide lifts all boats…

I’d like to thank you sincerely or taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

CORY BRANAN

WHEN I GO I GHOST

2022, Blue Elan Records

https://www.corybranan.com

CARLY RAE JEPSEN

THE LONELIEST TIME

2022, Interscope Records

https://www.carlyraemusic.com

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE

2022, Columbia Records

https://brucespringsteen.net

BROCKHAMPTON

THE FAMILY

2022, RCA Records

https://www.brckhmptn.com

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2021 | 2021-12-22

RYAN ADAMS — WEDNESDAYS & BIG COLORS (PAXAM RECORD COMPANY)

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PAUL MCCARTNEY — MCCARTNEY III & IMAGINED (CAPITOL RECORDS)

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WEEZER — OK HUMAN & VAN WEEZER (ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP)

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JOHN THE GHOST — I ONLY WANT TO LIVE ONCE (8123)

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KINGS OF LEON — WHEN YOU SEE YOURSELF (RCA RECORDS)

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GENESIS OWUSU — SMILING WITH NO TEETH (HOUSE ANXIETY)

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BROCKHAMPTON — ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE (RCA RECORDS)

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J. COLE — THE OFF-SEASON (DREAMVILLE)

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TYLER, THE CREATOR — CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST (COLUMBIA RECORDS)

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BLEACHERS — TAKE THE SADNESS OUT OF SATURDAY NIGHT (RCA RECORDS)

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THE KILLERS — PRESSURE MACHINE (ISLAND RECORDS)

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TURNSTILE — GLOW ON (ROADRUNNER RECORDS)

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KANYE WEST — DONDA (DEF JAM RECORDINGS)

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ANGELS & AIRWAVES — LIFEFORMS (RISE RECORDS)

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THIRD EYE BLIND — OUR BANDE APART (MEGACOLLIDER RECORDS)

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SAM FENDER — SEVENTEEN GOING UNDER (POLYDOR RECORDS)

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EVERY TIME I DIE — RADICAL (EPITAPH RECORDS)

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THE WAR ON DRUGS — I DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (ATLANTIC RECORDING)

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ABBA — VOYAGE (POLAR MUSIC)

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MAKAYA MCCRAVEN — DECIPHERING THE MESSAGE (BLUE NOTE RECORDS)

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I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy holidays this time around.

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): BROCKHAMPTON – ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE | 2021-04-10

We ain’t taking new BROCKHAMPTON projects lightly around here. After losing a whole year like the rest of us in 2020—causing them to fail to maintain their once-per-year LP issuing cadence for the first time since their 2016 All American Trash mixtape—the famed and celebrated pop-rap collective saw fit to unveil the first teaser to their alleged penultimate album ever as a boy band ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE toward the end of March, before unleashing the full body of work shortly thereafter on 9th April. Previewed by the manic and ferocious synthetic thrust of the rad Danny Brown-assisted “BUZZCUT“, the thirteen-chaptered sixth studio effort from the Texas-formed hip-hop group came into existence not without a certain degree of friction, huffing and panting as the culmination of a deranged and straining juncture for most of its members. Some of them spiralled into ravaging existentialism, some took time off to decompress and regroup, others lost family members to suicide, and most simply tried to do the right thing and combated an era-defining public health crisis.

Just to get some of the housekeeping and formalities out of the way here—this thing clocks in at about 45 minutes and change, is out as part of the band’s ongoing multi-year contractual obligation to Sony Music’s RCA Records, and comes co-signed, if not endorsed, by pretty much a who’s who of the hip-hop Mount Rushmore, starting with Wu-Tang Clan’s own RZA and super producer Rick Rubin. It’s sprawling and brimming with eclectic featured guests too, something of a first for BROCKHAMPTON, at least to the extent found here on a proper full length outside of sandboxing focus grouped contexts (such as last years’ pirated livestreamed Technical Difficulties mixtapes). On the newest project, a string of external vocal duties are provided by both A-list mainstream prima donnas (A$AP Rocky, Shawn Mendes, Charlie Wilson), as well as underground up-and-coming acts which one can only assume were pretty much A&R’d by Kevin Abstract and co. themselves (SoGone SoFlexy, Baird, Ryan Beatty). When considering both official tracklisted spots as well as uncredited contributions, no single record amongst the thirteen here is entirely devoid of fingerprints external to the core boy band collective’s.

The piercing and cutthroat aforementioned lead single finds Abstract in rare wordsmithing form, spitting fuming bars like his life depended on them, whilst enveloping prohibitive pockets other MCs would rather keep at arms’ length from: “Truth prevails, this is real, miss my brother / I love my mother, drove all the way to Cali’ just to check up on me / Made her go home, felt the virus / Web of life is my weave, false dreams stripped by silence“. Affording an expensive but ever so trustworthy Danny Brown feature, ornate with eccentric experimentalism coupled with exquisite velvet glove production, allows the Los Angeles-based posse to translate this joint into easily one of the standouts on the whole album right out of the gate. Moreover, its expansive and anti-climactic outro seamlessly fades into JPEGMAFIA’s low-key fly stanzas on the following G-funk “CHAIN ON“, not before alighting at a soft, glossy, and chanty refrain courtesy again of group leader Abstract.

Sequenced at number three on the tracklist one finds the carefree and summery alt-pop inklings of “COUNT ON ME“, doubling as the LP’s second single and—regrettably—tripling as one of the more lukewarm lulls on the whole project. Rocky’s lifeless uncredited intro and verse might just be uncredited for a reason, and while the Ryan Beatty and Shawn Mendes combo pairing crooning the “It’ll be okay, no matter what thеy say about us / It’ll be okay, no matter what they say about us / I know that it’ll bе okay / You ain’t even need no money, you can count on me” chorus is a certainly catchy formula, it’s also pretty much the only redeeming quality this tired radio edit has got going for itself. Counterintuitively, the following “BANKROLL“, with its intricate and busy textured beat and (properly credited) A$AP Mob indulgence does not seem to be able to invert the one-dimensional leitmotif kicked off by “COUNT ON ME”, falling short on nearly all accounts, sounding like a hodgepodge of lacklustre cutting room floor material from the group’s GINGER and iridescence studio sessions.

Fortunately, ROADRUNNER picks up quality steam and lifts off again on its (vinyl’d) B-side with one of its title tracks. “THE LIGHT” at number five is a revelatory, stark, and bare portray spat by both JOBA and Kevin Abstract set to distorted guitars and zany organ samples, interplayed by a singular foreboding and swift chorus, acting as central statement of intent for the whole entire record’s concept underpinning: “For the record, I can fly / Around the world, absorbing light / Something’s missin’ deep inside / The light“. Speaking of table centrepieces, the following six-minute epic “WINDOWS” might just stand as the boy band’s best and most grandiose roll call-meets-victory lap display by virtually all key members to date, sporting gnarly and captivating verses, bridges, and refrains one after another from, in chronological order, Video Store (Abstract and lead producer Romil Hemnani’s media company) signee and fellow Corpus Christi MC SoGoneSoFlexy, Merlyn Wood, Matt Champion, Jabari Manwa, Dom McLennon, JOBA, Kevin Abstract, and bearface.

Believe it or not, some of the most memorable moments on this thing are yet to be dissected though: “OLD NEWS” opening a hypothetical vinyl’s side C at number eight is lifted from true blue classic BROCKHAMPTON playbook MO, showcasing everything from saccharine R&B knacks, sing-along-y refrains, heartfelt and uncompromising bars from Champion, Wood, JOBA, as well as obscure talent Baird, all the way to bona fide clever producer tags worked in for prosperity (“BLEACH“, anyone?). The glamorous and sensual Charlie Wilson-assisted ballad “I’LL TAKE YOU ON“, together with bearface’s modern hymn solo gospel “DEAR LORD“, ensure some proper and much needed soulful respite is spruced atop of the otherwise musically eventful thirteen-cut tracklist, whilst the JOBA-Champion duet atop of an irresistible “WHAT’S THE OCCASION?” alternative indie beat comes across like one of the band’s most off-kilter and compelling songwriting in a while, completed by a sure fan favourite melancholic refrain (“A million little pieces all add up to nothin’ lately / Swim within my bedsheets, it’s somethin’ like a celebration / What’s the occasion? / What’s the occasion?“) as well as gorgeous Beatles-esque arrangement. Yes, you read that right.

Similarly, one could not sing enough praise about the two superlative back-to-back cuts “WHEN I BALL” and “DON’T SHOOT UP THE PARTY” on the record’s back end for switching up gears yet again—their inventive, refined, and catchy demeanour is pure sonic feast to behold. What’s even more remarkable about these two numbers is that they both manage to miraculously still leave a decisive creative impact after having undergone the evident enduring legacy from the wealth of quality material preceding them on ROADRUNNER. Yet, the award for absolute and utmost show-stopping, scene-stealing, heads-turning apex undoubtedly goes to curtain closer “THE LIGHT, PT II“. This stripped down, deconstructed, and larger-than-life helping houses what has got to be one of the most candid, bare, and brutally honest heart-on-sleeve set of verses any BROCKHAMPTON member ever put down to wax in the group’s discography. The following album closing account from JOBA, aside from being impeccably executed, acts as ultimate exhibit to life’s herculean and stoic defiance, particularly when guided by the light machine. It’s reported here in closing and in its bowing out entirety:

When that hammer pulled back, did you think of me?
You were the one that taught me how to be
Look at me now in all my glory
Overcame a lot, that’s a different story
Abandoned by the life-giver, lookin’ back at my life different
Deep cuts in the dusk of the final gasp, before your life flashed
What happens when you die? Does it fade black?
I sense you in my skin and the trucker cap
Missed it when we laughed
Didn’t trust my intuition when I saw the cracks
I’m sorry, all I ever want to do is make you proud
Fleetin’ moments, always found a way around the frown
Set aside the pain to celebrate the now
Couldn’t kick me out the house, I was fucked up
Nothing to prove without doubt, if I’m man enough
What’s the use? I could use you, ’cause I’m scared as fuck
Tuck me in, always young enough to feel loved
And share some, are you lookin’ down?
And a child reachin’ out, brittle bone, crying now
The past does not define you
The past does not define you
The burden was too much
Couldn’t save you from yourself when you’d self-destruct
Couldn’t save me from myself when I pushed my luck
To tell the truth, I am just like you
Left it all in the pistol that you used
Always be a little man, following your footsteps
Even though I’m mad, even though you’re gone
You live on, and the day I have kids
And tell ’em ’bout Grandpa and how great he is
And the grandkids’ grandkids
You’ll never meet if it weren’t for you
I wouldn’t be, neither would they
It’s safe to say I’ll find a way out the darkness
The way you left ‘Ma hits me the hardest
What a shame, things change in the blink of an eye
Fade away, fast break to the depths in the sky
Impermanence turned permanent with a nine
That’s life, that’s life

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

BROCKHAMPTON

ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE

2021, RCA Records

https://www.brckhmptn.com

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2019 | 2019-12-18

KA_AB KEVIN ABSTRACT – ARIZONA BABY (RCA RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

tyler-the-creator-igor-1250x1200 TYLER, THE CREATOR – IGOR (COLUMBIA RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

BruceSpringsteen_WS BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – WESTERN STARS (COLUMBIA RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

Freddie-Gibbs-and-Madlib-Bandana-1561475407-640x640 FREDDIE GIBBS & MADLIB – BANDANA (RCA RECORDS)

Buy it here.

BH_Ginger BROCKHAMPTON – GINGER (RCA RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

SamFender_HypersonicMissiles SAM FENDER – HYPERSONIC MISSILES (POLYDOR RECORDS)

Buy it here.

Sandy Alex G_House (SANDY) ALEX G – HOUSE OF SUGAR (DOMINO RECORDING CO)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

blink-182_NINE BLINK-182 – NINE (COLUMBIA RECORDS)

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third-eye-blind-screamer THIRD EYE BLIND – SCREAMER (MEGA COLLIDER RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

JEW_Surviving JIMMY EAT WORLD – SURVIVING (RCA RECORDS)

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I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy holidays this time around.

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): BROCKHAMPTON – GINGER | 2019-08-24

Godspeed to us all, now blessed and adorned with the fifth studio album in less than three calendar years from self-imposed best boy band since One Direction, the all-American BROCKHAMPTON. It should not come as a surprise to any of you at this point that the dozen people-strong Los Angeles-based posse has been responsible for one of the most creative and exciting artistic journey in the past few years, at least as far as the mainstream commercial realm is concerned. After having sandboxed, doctored, and perfected a near-immaculate transcendental rap trilogy debut spree with their experimental Saturation series throughout 2017—mind you, to put this into perspective, that translates into almost 50 new recordings produced and released within less than twelve months—, the hip-hop collective de-briefed and re-grouped for a minute, allowing itself a breather before coming out with the UK-conceived somber-epic iridescence under rebooted identity and spirit last year.

Not only that, but in the midst of two years filled with writing, touring, promo, co-signs, and features, BROCKHAMPTON’s de-facto leader and creative beacon Kevin Abstract even found time to drop a full LP on his own, coming in the shape of the powerful and therapeutic ARIZONA BABY and dating a mere three months prior to this newest full-band one. Kevin Abstract is arguably a good place to start for GINGER, the group’s latest full length outing that just hit the shelves (GINGER is also their second under the imposing RCA/Sony Music-multi-million deal inked off the back of their blistering Saturation campaign). Abstract’s silent leadership and uncompromising holistic creative vision has always been the brightest North Start for the boy band, whether each individual member likes it or not. Granted, individual MCs such as Dom McLennon or producer-rapper JOBA might have grown faster and more intensely than the group’s frontman per sé over the course of their still-infant discography. However, it’s Kevin’s subtle and refined pen-game, coupled with his immense socio-cultural baggage, that has always acted as necessary catalyst for every new BROCKHAMPTON chapter to date.

Be it his unpredictable, versatile, yet outspoken artistic demeanour, his subdued boy band charisma, or simply his heightened vocation for carrying through with his calling, Kevin Abstract and the whole entire BROCKHAMPTON raison d’être are but two sides of the same, shiny coin. Howbeit, perhaps counter-intuitively, his all-encompassing influence and pep-talk energy appears to have taken somewhat of a backseat on GINGER, at least at a surface level. Sure, his inaugural verse on the album’s flagship first lead single, the structure-less and fluid “I BEEN BORN AGAIN” (unveiled on 31st July), weighs much heavier than just a symbolic ribbon-cutting to the new record cycle. Still, already from the following teasers dropped in anticipation to the full release—from the corky and carnivalesque “IF YOU PRAY RIGHT” (7th August) to the sensationally eclectic “BOY BYE“—his presence appears to be more episodic and marginal, albeit intense nonetheless. On the other hand, it’s gifted rapper and lyricist Dom McLennon who actually comes through with some his more convinced, complex, and technical deliveries on all the album singles. Case in point, his flow on “IF YOU PRAY RIGHT”: “I got spirits in my heart that make my mind move like it’s water / Flow into the moment and avoid the melodrama / Gotta breathe for a second, can’t believe anybody still testing / My whole team is a force to be reckoned with / Operating like specialists / One‚ to the two, to the who are you?“.

Rewinding back to track one, the beautiful and enchanting opening acoustic ballad “NO HALO“, revealed a few days before the release of GINGER, enjoys virtually every composing element of BROCKHAMPTON truly come into their own, displaying unprecedented amounts of executional touch, lyrical valence, emotional merit, and idyllic sonic architecture. As a side note, and just to trace it back to Kevin Abstract’s drive again, it would not be too far off to assume that its crushing reverberated tremolo acoustic guitar and general underlying tune sprouted during the leader’s studio writing sessions for his last solo effort (see “Crumble“). This song sees the welcome return of special guests Ryan Beatty—an old acquaintance of the Kevin and the group, as well as a quasi-member of the collective—and 88rising-lendee Deb Never, who provides her angelic pitch to the song’s celestial refrain. Clocking in at about four minutes and a half, this existential serenade undoubtedly represents one of the record’s key and most important moments, incidentally chosen as the curtain opener by the band.

Interestingly enough, and pretty much in accordance to some of the points outed above, GINGER as whole is BROCKHAMPTON’s shortest album to date, both in terms of track listing (twelve cuts) and run time (45 minutes). Unlike all of their previous efforts, there are no real skits or interludes on this thing, either. This LP witnesses the boy band clearly learning how to hone and refine their compositional virtues over time, resorting to more poignant and necessary statements, decluttering much of what would’ve inevitably come along even a mere six months ago. A prime example of this is the Ryan Beatty-assisted “SUGAR” at number two, a bona fide wholesome R&B/pop song in which both Dom McLennon and Matt Champion spit out standout verses, respectively:

“I move mountains on my own, don’t need nobody help / Change your mind when I change my life, better start believing in myself / And we all out lookin’ for, lookin’ for God so we never see it in ourself / Shit, divine intervention move in stealth“;

“Yeah, back on Vincent with the braces on / Used to slide out the back without the neighbors knowin’ / Pose for the picture with the pearly whites / Dead lens zoomin’ in, catching all my strikes“.

Another such moment is found on track number ten “BIG BOY“, a Kevin Abstract and JOBA-dominated feast of dark and grim soundscapes enveloped in show-stopping and radically catchy bars from each of them. The latter has hardly ever sounded so self-assured and convicted, only to be conveying some of his most personal and delicate sentences ever. Yet with all that being said, the one track that has been causing a wealth of commotion around the BROCKHAMPTON community amidst the release frenzy is undoubtedly “DEARLY DEPARTED“. And rightfully so. Part tune where core OG MCs Kevin Abstract, Matt Champion, and Dom McLennon reinstate their shared lyrical throne, part liberating and cathartic stream of consciousness aimed at cleansing a filthy yet unequivocal past, the song’s superior larger-than-life production and pristinely lush instrumentation make for a joint that is both powerful and gorgeous to the ears.

The raunchy and industrial “ST PERCY“, as well as piano-confessional curtain closer “VICTOR ROBERTS“, add to the proud list of these next-generation BROCKHAMPTON cuts whose production, songwriting, and delivery shine through in evolved form, and where the messaging is more succinct and to the point, where a certain sense of musical structure prevails over sheer off-the-wall lab experimentation. Notwithstanding this, GINGER is not free of fat that could have been cut or even flat out snoozers. Such are the UK-grime rapper on-the-rise slowthai-guested “HEAVEN BELONGS TO YOU“, a track that unfortunately sticks out like a sore thumb lending no additional ounce of rhyme nor reason to the overall picture. Meanwhile, the half-baked self-titled joint, drown in pitch distortion and autotune as it is, makes for what sounds like a forgettable and flavourless indie-pop number. Penultimate song “LOVE ME FOR LIFE” can’t really stick its landing either, providing little more than monotone beat and flow on top of a thoroughly off-putting verse from member rapper Merlyn Wood.

All things considered, BROCKHAMPTON’s fifth official body of work is a less catchy, less immediate, and less poppy affair than any of its predecessors. Perhaps it’s because it gestated throughout the course of a critical semi-hiatus during which members broke out and re-settled as separate-joint units. It is also the group’s shortest statement to date, and one that generally is less sticky, out-there and in your face, for better or worse. Yet, with this one, most rappers and producers within the BROCKHAMPTON pantheon truly started to gain both access and dwelling rights to their true elevated creative element, cranking out songs that are amongst the band’s best and most maturely sincere. On here, pure initial traces of timeless boy band-level pop songwriting are also finally starting to emerge, suggesting an overall refinement of their authorship skills now yielding riper, more self-aware, and enduring results. In spite of what anyone else had you believe with their Saturation saga or even iridescence, GINGER is BROCKHAMPTON’s real coming-of-age record.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

BROCKHAMPTON

GINGER

2019, Question Everything Inc./RCA Records

http://www.brckhmptn.com

BH_Ginger

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): DOMINIC FIKE – PHONE NUMBERS | 2019-07-07

School, radio shows, TV programmes, and so much more are easily out for summer by now. However, as we all know very well, music and other forms of conspicuous cultural media production and consumption never miss a beat, rising up instead to pull out all the stops in times of abundant times to kill on the part of unaware audiences. New music Fridays know no holidays, if you know what I mean. So needless to say, the initial portion of this year’s warmest season did not go shy in cranking out new creative manufacture to keep us and our moms all entertained. Hence why, this latest ARM instalment found itself forced to come to fruition by way of a hybridised approach, milk-shaking various existing content staples together, such as ARM itself, APIT, and pinches of musical loose odds and ends too.

To cut a long introduction short, despite this very piece being filed under the ever-so-familiar ARM feature section indeed (see above), it actually represents kind of a novelty, an editorial debut of sorts. For the first time after 45 — yes, I counted — individual ARM instalments spread over multiple years, going over either full albums or EPs, this new Dominic Fike short review will instead focus on a single track only. Consider it a precedent, ladies and gentlemen. And, I won’t be afraid to use it in the future. Shocker, I know. Regardless, before we delve into the artistic merits and flaws of this new Kenny Beats-produced song “Phone Numbers“, I just wanted to take this occasion to blatantly implore you, on my bruised knees, to please please give the new Freddie Gibbs & Madlib joint Bandana a listen. Several looped listens, actually. The replay value of this thing is off the charts. Mind you, whether this wholly gratifies you or not, at this point I shall constrain my critical judgement to this tweet alone. Also, if you feel like checking out season three of Stranger Things, which just dropped mere days ago, go ahead and do that too. It’s a hectic and layered third set of episodes. That Bandana album though.

At this point you might have heard or read about 23-year old Florida-born rapper Dominic Fike in-between the lines of previous pieces on this online real estate property, or anywhere else on the Interweb for that matter. However, generally speaking, little is still to be encountered about the somehow elusive rapper/singer-songwriter, who’s already managed to squeeze jail time, drug abuse, a dysfunctional family background, and a multi-million bidding war among major labels under his existential belt. His indie rock-flirting debut project Don’t Forget About Me, Demos — a swirling and hooky 6-track EP that received the re-mastering/re-releasing treatment with Sony Music/Columbia Records shortly after they successfully courted him — is in fact the sole official trace of a music industry pedigree of sorts for the Naples-native, virtually shelved on streaming services alongside a few standalone singles that started to emerge since the month of June this year. That’s where things start to get interesting for us.

First, on the 7th day of said month, it was the hollow, pensive, and sullen “Açaí Bowl“, a slightly distorted autotune crooner aided by gentle guitar arpeggio fingering, navigating through evidently sensual chanted melodies (“She said ‘I dressed in your favorite / I bought two bottles of red / Unless you made reservations / Oh look, you thought all ahead'”) as well as concrete MC-like rap bars (“And when they locked me up, she never listened to her friend / They told her “move on” movin’ on (Mhm) / And now she tells that same bitch ”My shoes Prada / My boo bought ’em, I do love him‘”). Revealed on the same day, side-B to said single was the lo-fi neo-soul number “Rollerblades“, a 2-minute and change fuzzy, laid-back deconstruction of R&B sounds and aesthetics that wouldn’t have been out of place on Frank Ocean’s Blonde. Or actually maybe on its cutting room floor.

This takes us to a few days ago, Friday 5th July, when the BROCKHAMPTON-affiliate saw fit to unveil his third single in the now full-throttling series. The fun and groovy tongue-in-cheek reprimand “Phone Numbers”, which he seems to have confirmed serves as yet another taster in anticipation to his still unannounced debut full-length effort later in the year, sports a borderline tropical-dancehall vibe, embodying a 4/4 slapping beat and what sounds like a zany ukulele strumming moulding the main melodic lane throughout: “Why you not here with me? / Can you break bread with me? / Why you switch phone numbers like clothes? / Why you can’t answer me? (Yeah) / ‘Cause I got more coming“. While not the longest in runtime, this one definitely feels like the more structured and robust verse-chorus-verse-bridge boilerplate out of all the standalone tunes dropped hitherto, thanks arguably to super mega trendy producer royalty Kenny Beats doctoring the sound architecture on here.

As a follow up to these one-offs, it now seems more than legit to expect a fuller, more cohesive body of work sooner rather than later from the “3 Nights“-sensation, not least judging by the amount of unofficial and unreleased material that appears to be making waves around the web, including the raunchier underground gansgta hip-hop brand he started off in Florida with before moving off to shinier pastures new in Los Angeles. Also, if the stripped down Rain of Shine — the recent stream-of-consciousness impromptu Paris livestream he uploaded to his YouTube channel — is of any indication, then it’s signalling a clear pivoting towards beginning to re-populate the artist’s digital footprint with careful content pills apt to his new redux-ed persona.

Don’t get me wrong here, in spite of the slightly underwhelming and unfinished state of the material we got our hands on so far, we are indeed dealing with a raw and unrefined piece of artistic talent, capable of mastering a wide range of genres, instruments, and vocal interpretations dutifully puzzle-pieced together in service of clear pop sensibilities. After all, record labels might be cringeworthy and shallow, but they’re not stupid. With that being said, pretty much every element of his musical production is still quite all over the place, from his songwriting to even the slightest notion of a coherent sound apparatus. Yet, the various scatter-plotted pieces of gifted evidence we’ve gotten so far echo more and more promising by the drop. Furthermore, let us not forget the qualitative heights he managed to achieve for what he provided on BROCKHAMPTON’s leader Kevin Abstract recent ARIZONA BABY, a project on which he outshone any other collaborator. Come to think of it, we might indeed be witnessing the gradual unravelling of a caterpillar becoming butterfly just before our very eyes.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

DOMINIC FIKE

PHONE NUMBERS

2019, Columbia Records

https://dominicfike.com

DominicFike_Phone#

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): TYLER, THE CREATOR – IGOR | 2019-05-26

Provocateur. Jackass. Instigator. Fashion designer. Clown. Cockroach-eater. Enfant terrible. Cheese Danishes lover. Homophobic. Lead odd futurist. Artiste. Prodigal son. Wolf Haley. Misogynist. Influencer. DJ Stank Daddy. Bastard. (Scum fuck) Flower boy. Garçon. Mr Lonely. Gimmick. Fraud. UK and Australia land limits outlaw. Auteur. Punk. Eastern European name adorer. IGOR.

The above are but a filtered bunch of the somewhat one-dimensional and reductive tags Mr Tyler Gregory Okonma, aka Tyler, The Creator, has been subject to pigeonholing with during his career as a solo artist and beyond. The 28-year old Ladera Heights-native rapper, singer-songwriter, and producer has been witnessing nothing short of a stunning chameleonic trajectory as it pertains to both his personal and artistic identity refinement, roughly chaptered alongside a before-and-after moment on this timeline, captured by his tenure at his now defunct trailblazing rap collective Odd Future. Post-OF Tyler, The Creator has then seen his creative itinerary alight at five distinct full LPs preceding his last, IGOR, pivoting and peaking at superiorly lavish Flower Boy station two years ago, an album that still haunts yours truly in the shape of a sacrilege for not having seized the occasion to fully unpack it and review when it came out.

However, pretty much all of the compartmentalising labels and tags thrown at him by both click-bait tabloid and woke media left and right, seem to miss the fact that Tyler is, actually, a fairly old-fashioned and nostalgic twenty-something post-Napster millennial, as much indebted to Roy Ayers and Pharrell Williams as to UK’s own Doves and Nigerian punk-rock. One only needs to pay a tad closer attention than the average to discover how the influential Los Angeleno MC’s cognitive scheme works by employment of rather old-school, anachronistic, and analogue architectures of thinking. Case in point; he still refers to his songs — or any song, really — by calling them by their track listing position, instead of their actual title, denoting a clear reliance on the album as a format and thought processing lens when it comes to music. Or, as a further supporting exhibit, just turn to the prevalent apparel leitmotiv expressed through his clothing brand GOLF, notably inspired by dated run-of-the-mill retro-outfits sported by “old dudes”, in his own words.

Considering the above melting potato salad of misconception, surface-level-judging, creative evolution, latent missteps, and uninhibited self-expression peppered throughout Tyler, The Creator’s multi-artistic career to date, the rather sudden arrival of his sixth studio project IGOR on Friday 17th May was arguably destined by design to be met with a combo of curiosity and excitement. Tyler’s camp managed to squeeze the entirety of the album’s promo and anticipation within two weeks and change, as the rapper’s social media accounts began teasing sonic sneak peaks of less then a minute in length, kicking off with scene-setting “IGOR’S THEME” on 1st May, delivering an hypnotic distorted synth attack chased chronologically by an edgy drum kit, additional layered keys, and the start of a refrain. Similarly formatted snippet clips followed in quick succession, first with the eerie and foreboding lo-fi of “WHAT’S GOOD“, then taking a left spin with the tasty and warm soul of “A BOY IS A GUN“, only to retract to another U-turn with the subsequent “NEW MAGIC WAND” teaser, another big, heavy, violent beat gelled together by a pitch-shifted spine and its quasi-industrial feel.

Unsurprisingly, as we’re dealing with Tyler — and in pure harmonic alignment with the nostalgia claims above —, IGOR’s tasters ought not be considered as singles to the record in any way, shape, or form. While the former Odd Future honcho did in fact drop a full music video for his schmaltzy, sugary, and delicious tune “EARFQUAKE” on album release day — very much in the spirit of a lead flagship track statement for the whole record — he actually saw fit to publish so-called listening instructions for fans to heighten their proper engagement with the record as Tyler meant it to be. These include memos reminding listeners that “This is not Bastard. This is not Goblin. This is not Wolf. This is not Cherry Bomb. This is not Flower Boy. This is IGOR. Pronounced EEE-GORE.” and, most crucially, crossing Ts and dotting Is around pre-conceptions: “Dont (sic) go into this expecting a rap album. Dont (sic) go into this expecting any album. Just go, jump into it“.

Thus, in his defence, we can’t say we weren’t warned. And oh (flower) boy were those instructions predictively on point. This thing is as much a fuzzy R&B/funk soufflé as it rocks an abstract hip-hop flair, only if it were almost exclusively inspired by low-fidelity Neo-soul crooner-ish songwriting. I haven’t actually measured it so don’t quote me on that, but it’s probably safe to say that true blue MC bars don’t make up even half of IGOR’s total runtime of just about 40 minutes. Now, if Flower Boy were to be employed as some kind of MO trend indication in this sense, this shouldn’t struck as an inconceivable surprise. Notwithstanding this, IGOR isn’t simply a natural and evolutionary step forward in Tyler’s production, arrangement, and songwriting patterning. It’s more like a transverse 180· reboot, milk-shaking much of what he’s been (here’s looking at you, Wolf and Cherry Bomb), mixed with the holistically creative vision behind Flower Boy on steroids, and just a sea of pitch shifting effects. More than any of its predecessors, IGOR is a Tyler, The Creator statement of identity, intent, and emotion.

Counterintuitively, the project is in fact a mighty who’s-who concerto of features, collabs, and co-signs, yet its album art sleeve is here to heartily remind everyone that everything was written, arranged, and produced by the Tyler himself. Playboi Carti (“EARFQUAKE”), Lil Uzi Vert (“IGOR’S THEME”), Solange (“I THINK”, “A BOY IS A GUN”, “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE”), Kanye West (“PUPPET”), Jerrod Carmichael (interludes MC and wisdom spreading impresario), Santigold (“NEW MAGIC WAND”, “PUPPET”), La Roux (“GONE, GONE/THANK YOU”), CeeLo Green (“GONE, GONE/THANK YOU”), Charlie Wilson (“EARFQUAKE”, “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE”), Slowthai (“WHAT’S GOOD”), and Pharrell (“ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?”) are only a selected few among the helping hands Tyler reached out to for the execution of the project, however no single one was deemed deserving and functional enough for an actual track-level display credit in the eyes of our favourite garçon.

Following a line of thinking warranting a full and overarching body of work appraisal, rather than a track-by-track surgical dissection of its fragmental building blocks, IGOR comes across as a bona fide example of an artistic whole being so much more than the mere sum of its compositional parts. It’s no coincidence Tyler or anyone at Columbia Records didn’t feel like spraying outward a single cut months ahead of the full LP release to entice the audience while at the same time canvassing a fairly representative sonic picture of what the full collection of songs was going to be. That would’ve in fact been a fool’s errand, whether we or Tyler like it or not. For one, perhaps paradoxically, no single track is in fact strong enough to exist autonomously and self-referentially (although the serene, catchy, and come-undone-revealing “RUNNING OUT OF TIME” comes close to that), a notion that with 20/20 hindsight was predictably anticipated by Tyler’s out-of-the-box instructions for use above. Furthermore, on a more mixing/production level of analysis, virtually all track transitions are established by continuous fade in-and-outs, doctoring a unique and uninterrupted listening experience from beginning to end.

What’s more, and quite in juxtaposition to the self-indulgent mission statement of the record, on IGOR Tyler is seen wearing many of his most explicit artistic influences proudly and confidently on his sleeves, to an extent where at times one couldn’t be condemned for thinking that this project was more of a compilation joint, rather than a concept art piece where the source artist acts as the be-all and end-all of its full craftsmanship. Note how his somewhat unrequited love for R&B/Soul blossoms on songs such as the aforementioned “EARFQUAKE”, the confessional and loaded “A BOY IS A GUN”, and perhaps most predominantly on the inquisitive and climaxing album closer “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?“. Kanye West, on his part, shows up both on wax (on vulnerably desperate number “PUPPET”) and as a conceptual reference point: indie-garage derivative track number three “I THINK“s main melodic chords progression sounds just like a “Stronger” cutting-room floor residual demo from 2007. Plus, lest we forget, this whole entire thing has got Pharrell Williams written all over it.

Lyrically, IGOR is recounting a tale arc made of romanticism, love, attraction, rejection, confidence, insecurity, resentment, identity, and acceptance, although it’s extremely hard to put one’s finger on what cut exactly expresses what feeling. Almost as if by careful engineering intent, it’s only with the full twelve tracks under one’s belt and inside one’s brain that the listener can begin to make heads or tails of the bird’s eye view narrative carved into this project’s ethos. When thinking back at specific emotions or cognitive landscapes perceived while sucking up its content, it’s rare that a single song off IGOR is truly capable of doing full justice to the specific feeling conveyed. There is almost a sense of performative uncertainty — or perhaps hesitation — to the scatterbrained itemised musical brushes encapsulated in the twelve distinct-yet-unified vectors that make up IGOR. This might support the evidence around the lack of a real lead single, or even a typical radio-friendly verse-chorus-bride songwriting structure. Instead, in order to funnel a kaleidoscopic, heterogeneous, and contradictory story, with IGOR Tyler was forced to resort back to the comfort of his artistic cognitive infrastructure more than ever, counting on only those few reference points he’s always been faithful to (hence why track number ten “GONE, GONE/THANK YOU” still has a two-songs-for-one structure, as with all his previous full-lengths).

It’s probably still too soon — or actually too late — to measure the impact of single tracks over the full body of work under scrutiny here, as it would admittedly and arguably be an exercise dead on arrival. The risk of not seeing the forest for the trees would be too high. But also, there is a suspicion lurking that Tyler knew it all along. That is, in the above mentioned listening instructions, he also writes: “As much as I would like to paint a picture and tell you my favourite moments, I would rather you form your own“. What better way to spill the beans upfront, revealing that there are in fact no such individual favourite moments, for this project is strictly meant to be digested as a whole unified and interoperable hodgepodge?

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

TYLER, THE CREATOR

IGOR

2019, Columbia Records

https://www.golfwang.com

TTC_IGOR2

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): KEVIN ABSTRACT – ARIZONA BABY | 2019-04-27

Feed me anything stemming from the BROCKHAMPTON universe and I shall gravitate towards it like ducks to water. This predicament has held true pretty much ever since the Texan boy band stormed onto the global music scene in 2017 and began turning a lot of incredulous heads as it went on to release its magnum opus Saturation trilogy within the span of a little more than six months. The fact that this latest project baked out of the hip-hop collective’s factory is earmarked by its founder and leader Kevin Abstract does nothing but add substance and critical mass of intrigue to the whole shebang. This is partly because noblesse oblige, but arguably more so due to the rapper/singer-songwriter having had to deal with a past twelve calendar months full of exterior dismissals, periods of self-doubt, and indirect solitary confinement while the boy band fulfilled the cumbersome release cycle around their ambitious fourth studio effort iridescence. For those of you not in the know, let’s just say that Kevin’s contribution to BROCKHAMPTON as of late wasn’t exactly a spotless and wholesome embrace on the part of audience and critics, with the advancement of more or less aggravating accusations ranging from him having lost any faculty of adding real value to the group’s new music to head-on reprimands of acting as entitled prima donna choosing deliberately to dim away from the creative limelight of the artistic project.

Needless to say, Mr Abstract must have had more than a few things to get off his chest. Acting as the group’s prodigal son — and by unfortunate curse of it, its scapegoat — while at the same time elbowing its way to cut through the cultural discourse of a more often than not bigot and retrograde society as a young black queer millennial can’t ever be understated. However, the above are not the only reasons worth justifying a fiery engagement by way of heightened enthusiasm with Kevin’s latest third studio LP ARIZONA BABY. For one, his last solo project American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story (2016) proved to be a sensationally pretty and beautifully crafted body of work, all the while carrying enhanced lyrical and thematic value captured with a maturity certainly not evident for someone who had barely turned twenty years of age. So, after the exploit of a lifetime experienced on the BROCKHAMPTON trajectory, including a groundbreaking major label deal with RCA Records earlier last year, an inevitable soaring curiosity ensued to accompany the anticipation around his follow-up. Thankfully, Kevin did not disappoint. For starters, it’s not like the Texas-native and autotune-aficionado ever even properly announced the arrival of ARIZONA BABY, rather opting for semi-official hints of random album art renditions, scattered spring dates, and improbable Lana Del Rey shoutouts.

Let us try and make some order of the unfolding of events here. Firstly, it wasn’t until the 8th April that we got unequivocal indications pointing at new music from the MC, as Kevin dropped a music video for what turned out to be the first taster ‘single’ off the new project, coming in the form of an anxious and grinding minute-and-half Outkast-inspired bouncer called “Big Wheels“. Then, a few days later on 11th April, the BROCKHAMPTON crooner saw fit to drop a three-track single format pretty much without evidentiary explanation, simply dubbed ARIZONA baby. The bundle included the aforementioned lead cut, the lavishly carnivalesque “Joy Ride“, and the tear-inducing singalong stunner “Georgia” (whose sticky and sappy refrain “I got Georgia on my mind, ain’t nobody left behind / It’s just me, my team, my weed, my baby’s Audi parked outside / Call my mom and let her know that everything is alright” will live on for years on end already sounding like a classic). A mere week after that, it was time for Ghettobaby the EP, featuring all three above mentioned records with the same track listing order and the addition of three more. His native Texas hometown namesake “Corpus Christi” at number four is a stripped down palm-muted guitar-led intimate reflection on his past, while the Ryan Beatty-assisted “Baby Boy” stands hands down as one of the high points on the whole project, more so than the confusingly dull hodgepodge “Mississippi” that rounds up the EP. On “Baby Boy”, everything from its groovy and rhythmic verse laments to the irresistibly enchanting chorus as well as the clever instrumentation choice (incl. climaxing larger-than-life synths and warm sax lines) make for one of Kevin’s most well-rounded and wholesome tracks to date.

So at this point we were serviced with a pseudo-single with three loosely collated cuts and an accompanying EP sporting said three songs and a bunch more. Meanwhile, to many’s relief and excitement, the Los Angeles-based MC started dropping hints that what we were bearing witness to was in fact a gradually phased roll out for what was in fact his complete third studio full-length ARIZONA BABY (flashbacks to Denzel, anyone?). And then, fiercely defying industry release protocol norms, on Thursday 25th April the LP eventually saw the light of day, revealing a 11-strong tracklist — including all six previously unveiled cuts, shockingly — and supplying a little more than half-hour runtime of material. Moreover, on release day, the Abstract camp unleashed a brand new lead single and associated music video for “Peach“, at number eight on the tracklist. The joint is a gentle reverb-soaked acoustic tale of empowering self-discovery (“I ain’t sign up for no bullshit / I told my baby that I’m bulletproof / Mans made me take two sips / All things I couldn’t do“), and the video sees Kevin teaming up with not only most of the BROCKHAMPTON crew, but also introducing the raw up-and-coming performing talent of Florida singer Dominic Fike to the large rap collective’s audience. On here Dominic is in charge of lending the song’s chorus a lovely and delicious motif that is surely going to gratify numerous fireside chants this coming summer (“I’ll be your baby doll and your bodyguard if you tell me to / I’ll try to make it all not as hard if you let me through“).

Now, after having sat with the full collection of songs for a while, let me say this whole thing comes across as an extremely versatile and layered concept, one that I can already predict will hold a wealth of replay value and unpacking carved into its DNA. On the one hand, this record displays Kevin’s pristine pop sensibilities like no other before, presenting some of the catchiest and strongest tunes he’s ever written. On the other hand, too often one finds themselves wondering how on earth to make heads or tails for many of the songs, with power-pop super producer Jack Antonoff (of Bleachers fame) and BROCKHAMPTON’s very own Romil Hemnani’s mixing and sound architecture shamefully overwhelming the listener into self-indulgence. Unfortunately, some of the tune’s intentions fail to stick their landing, too. Take for instance track number seven “Use Me”, an effective gospel-channelling joint at first, only to transmute into a wishy-washy melting pot of doctored sounds that serve no real purpose other than withdrawing the track’s sense of direction from its promising start. Similarly, the ninth song on here “American Problem”, notwithstanding its personal, praiseworthy, and noble thematic commitment, drowns figuratively in auto-tuned pitch-manipulation leaving a lot to be desired on many fronts, though mainly compositionally and delivery-wise.

While ARIZONA BABY swaggerish curtain caller “Boyer” funnels pound for pound the BROCKHAMPTON’s Saturation era aesthetics playbook — with its quirky beat and frenetically glitchy flow — it’s moments like penultimate track “Crumble” that both elevate the full body of work on show here to heightened artistic horizons, and act as reminder that crafting potent emotional gems leveraging gnarly genre experimentation is precisely Kevin Abstract’s wheelhouse. This song has everything we’ve come to love about his raw and honest songwriting brilliancy, coupled with ingenious authoring design, pulling collabs and co-signs straight to wax from all heavyweights involved with this record. Case in point, Dominic Fike’s once again infectiously harmonious licks early on in the track, Jack Antonoff’s distantly spacious so-called ‘chorus’, and Ryan Beatty’s subtle second-voice additions to the bridge. Although it’s arguably the shaky reverberated acoustic guitar that lends the tune its heart-shattering delicacy, while simultaneously providing a bespoke sonic mantel to wrap up the intense sentimental energy of the song from cradle to grave.

Surprise surprise, this is Kevin Abstract’s most intimate and vulnerable record, outward-preaching and inward-internalising conceptions of empathy, compassion, emancipation, achieving an overall crisp sense of catharsis while doing it. The realisation that this comes in form of a motley melting pot of genres (rap, R&B, pop, jazz, indie-rock are all at home here), styles, sounds, and aesthetics, is secondary to the sublime principal mission statement of firing back at the world in the manner Kevin is known to do best: superior rite-of-passage songwriting.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

KEVIN ABSTRACT

ARIZONA BABY

2019, Question Everything Inc / RCA Records

http://arizonababy.world

KA_AB

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2018 | 2018-12-20

AAL_2012 A.A.L. (AGAINST ALL LOGIC) – 2012-2017 (OTHER PEOPLE)

Buy it here.

August-Greene-Album-Cover-Full AUGUST GREENE – AUGUST GREENE (AUGUST GREENE LLC)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

TheFever333_MAA THE FEVER 333 – MADE AN AMERICA (ROADRUNNER RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

pusha-t-daytona-artwork PUSHA T – DAYTONA (G.O.O.D. MUSIC)

Buy it here.

KIDS SEE GHOSTS – KIDS SEE GHOSTS (G.O.O.D. MUSIC)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

TA13OO_FINAL_ALBUM_COVER DENZEL CURRY – TA13OO (LOMA VISTA)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

Paul-McCartney-Egypt-Station-Album-Cover-web-optimised-820 PAUL MCCARTNEY – EGYPT STATION (CAPITOL RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

BH_Iridescence BROCKHAMPTON – IRIDESCENCE (RCA RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

181112-jid-dicaprio-2-album-cover JID – DI CAPRIO 2 (DREAMVILLE RECORDS)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

EARL SWEATSHIRT – SOME RAP SONGS (TAN CRESSIDA)

Buy it here. Read the ARM review here.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy holidays this time around.

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): BROCKHAMPTON – IRIDESCENCE | 2018-09-24

Now that Notes from Barcelona – the Punktastic-hosted featured column series about the alternative/heavy live music scene in the Catalan capital – has finally pulled its editorial curtains and wrapped up a wonderful twelve-months of steady correspondence, expect this site to get even more flooded and infested by fierce jazzy music reviews, in addition to perhaps scattered musings and banters regarding books, TV, and cinema content here and there. For this reason and with this premise, partly because noblesse oblige, partly because of the topical relevancy of the significant subject matter, some time and space ought to be devoted to a recently released album which is almost too big to fail (and therefore ignore). What I’m referring to is none other than Sir Paul McCartney’s latest and 18th enthralling studio album Egypt Station, an opus work of art masterminded by influential and skilled producer Greg Kurstin that has unconditionally and inevitably been on heavy rotation on EMS’s playlists and mixtapes, almost exactly ever since its release on the past 7th September. Yet at the same time, conflictingly, the team here (?) is wholeheartedly, platonically, and consciously aware that one can’t simply review a Macca album as if it were nothing and just get away with it. Some appraisal tasks are bigger than one’s self, and with recording and performing acts like the Beatle par excellence, there simply comes a point where he transcends whichever semiotic symbolism (read: language, words) critics and reviewers might opt in to use in order to attempting at describing inherent artistic virtues, or lacks thereof, of any given creative endeavour by Sir Paul.

With that being said, the only thing I’d like to highlight and stress out, before embarking onto the actual music unit of analysis of the present critical assessment piece, is that the way Paul McCartney crafts and produces compellingly honest and raw storytelling through ornamented and layered melodies still goes unmatched. Much like a modern day raconteur or peasant minstrel distributing wisdom to his fellow villagers via insightful passages, Paul’s ability, or rather virtue, to construct simple yet universally addressable messages by way of simply-packaged and digestible power pop narratives is extremely sticky, and gains intrinsic value by the listen and by proxy of shared experiencing. Case in point, the tear-inducing and heart warming sly confessional of “Happy with You“, or the gracious and harmonic aesthetic of the very Beatles-esque “Dominoes“, all the way to Egypt Station’s more contaminated, experimental, and slightly left field cuts “Back in Brazil“, “Despite Repeated Warnings“, and album closer “Hunt You Down / Naked / C-Link“. No, ladies and gentlemen, I shall repeat myself, this isn’t a review in any shape or form, but just a testament of adulation to the biggest songwriter of our time and to his ability to instruct us all as to how to make sense of the world around us, almost since the world itself began, as Rolling Stone kindly points out when blasphemously reviewing the record: “Make a list of all the songwriters who were composing great tunes in 1958. Now make an overlapping list of the ones who are still writing brilliant songs in 2018. Your list reads: Paul McCartney. Sixty years after ‘Love Me Do,’ his legend already inviolable, Macca keeps adding new gems to his songbook, with nothing to prove except he’s the only genius who can do this“.

Now, the main LP getting dissected and scrutinised in this article actually has more in common with Paul and the Beatles ecosystem than one might imagine at first. Yes, because sensational rap/hip-hop collective BROCKHAMPTON’s fourth album iridescence was in fact recorded and produced at London’s Abbey Road Studios in just ten days, and no one needs reminding how that is linked to the Fab Four. So let’s not kid ourselves and act as if this isn’t a big deal. BROCKHAMPTON, the hardest working boyband in show business and arguably the biggest revelation to come out of 2017’s Western underground/indie/DIY artistic underbelly, conceived their incredibly highly-anticipated (and frequently retitled) follow up to the fantastic and critically acclaimed Saturation trilogy inside The Beatles’ legendary creative hub, and no one bats an eye? Well, in fact, many did bat an eye and because of that, many a stories came out in the run up to the album drop on 21st September, all fuelled by a wide variety of juicy, noteworthy, and controversial discussion topics, ranging from the queer group’s revelation and stellar rise last year to the unfortunate and regrettable exit of key core member Ameer Vann earlier this Spring, following a wealth of sexual abuse allegations put forward against him. What’s more, iridescence appears to be the first sonic instalment of yet another artistic trilogy dubbed The Best Years of Our Lives, to be issued by RCA Records (via their own production house Question Everything) after the Kevin Abstract-executively produced mega-group signed a much talked about deal with the Sony-owned imprint in March this year.

To be absolutely frank, the winding bias coefficient is not lost on me when approaching the artistic critical assessment of the fourth album of a performing act whose previous three full-lengths all featured in this site’s AOTY end-lists, during the same year. Nonetheless, the skilled and mixed race group’s influence and impact on the contemporary creative zeitgeist make for a kaleidoscopic perceived urgency that exists beyond any contributor’s personal preferences and warrants a judicial scrutiny all the same. Clocking in at just short of 50 minutes, and sporting a solid 15 tracks (including one and a half skits), iridescence kicks off with a grand slam in the listener’s face, with the fiery, hypnotic, and dingy “New Orleans”, sourcing top-notch deliveries by two of the boyband’s premier MCs, Dom McLennon (“When I die, these words gon’ need separate caskets in a hearse / I don’t rhyme, I freeze time and let these hands just do the work / I’m in tandem with my curse, going manic since my birth / See this canvas as I planned it, I’m commanding with my nerves“) and Matt Champion (“Bustin’ out the function, highly comfortable / Got this hot ting on my body, man my sweat lethal / Sweet kisses like the candy out the carnival / I’ma call my own shots, hit the audible“). After an unbelievably smooth and streamlined transition into what sounds like a Saturation-era-leftover, “Thug Life”, a powerfully dense trio of crunchy, distorted, and hectic cuts takes centerstage in this first half of the LP (“Berlin”, “Something About Him”, and “Where the Cash At”), lending a little too much messiness, although coupled with wonderfully intricate and layered vocal melodies, to the overall aesthetic. That said, the band’s mixing and mastering wizard Russell Boring aka JOBA’s outro on “Berlin” especially, is superior melodic songwriting, one that in the specific context of the moments of its happening takes the listener into a superlatively sweet, tender, and lucid direction after the intense and overwhelming sonic vortex populating the rest of said number.

“Weight” at number six on the playlist is an outstanding piece of compositional craft that virtually ticks all the boxes of best-in-breed modern hip-hop hit making, while at the same time marking a clear and distinct departure from the rap collective’s Saturation trilogy-universe: sound, theme, lyrics, production, delivery, structure, and flow. You name it, this song kills it. Moving on, the radically experimental and at times identity-less “District” wraps up side A of iridescence, glued together to its sister face by gorgeously pleasant filler “Loophole”, before diving into the grandiose and eerily dark-sounding and Radiohead-sampling “Tape” (on this one, take a moment to appreciate Kevin Abstract’s, JOBA’s, and Matt Champion’s damn fine flows and deliveries). Notwithstanding BROCKHAMPTON leader’s Twitter PSA warning, “J’ouvert” at number ten is the closest thing to a promotional single this project has got, and regardless of whether one wants to believe him or not, what a wonderful and striking choice that it. Everything from its tongue-in-cheek sound catchiness to each MC’s flawless vocal delivery, passing through the raucous, dangerous, and incendiary mood permeating the song throughout, “J’ouvert” hands down makes for one of the group’s most accomplished and astonishing tracks to date. What follows, “Honey”, is doubtlessly album peak to me, a stunningly creative and catchy patchwork that makes three minutes and change go by as if they were mere seconds. On this joint, heightened lyrical poignancy (“My people still dry snitchin’ whenever they touch the mic / That’s what happens when a therapist isn’t somewhere in sight / Take flight, never leaned to the left or the right / ‘Cause they turn the other cheek when our ni**as start to die“) gets coupled with fun and daring beats (that go as far as self-sampling Saturation’s chopped and screwed blasting gem “Bump” into a successfully reworked plug-in), but what takes this number up a millions notches is the unbelievably dreamy and heavenly elevating outro – or rather, second half – kicking in at about 1:35. Outta sight.

Across its final four tracks, the album isn’t able to match its top crown-y moments, unsurprisingly so given how much quality material is to be found distributed across the previous eleven cuts. Regrettably, the pale yet weird and chaotic “Vivid”, as well as dull and reductive album closer “Fabric”, lower the overall masterwork-status average of this record, only to be moderately counterbalanced in this late section by the stunningly robotic ballad “San Marcos” – curiously and un-intuitively inspired by the Goo Goo Dolls, still according to frontman Kevin Abstract – and previously unveiled lush and swanky tell-all dashboard confessional “Tonya”. All things considered, this major label debut and first instalment in the Best Years of Our Lives trilogy by the Texas-formed, LA-based collective represents a major flag in the BROCKHAMPTON career’s reign, a pivotal artistic landmark cradling inspired and gorgeously experimental sonic territory, forcefully navigated with the absence of a key founding member, but with a wealth of additional wisdom, depth, confidence, and virtue accompanying every steering turn and beat switch. iridescence is a fierce and dead serious candidate for a ton of further AOTY lists to come and a crystal clear conceptual delineation that the boyband isn’t comfortable simply resting on their Saturation laurels. Suddenly it doesn’t seem too crazy that, given ten days locked away in a quintessential Beatles reign creating on a 24/7 rotation basis, BROCKHAMPTON too might be eligible for the aforementioned Rolling Stone qualitative reasoning that worked so well for Macca. At least for now: “Make a list of all the songwriters who were composing great tunes in 2017. Now make an overlapping list of the ones who are still writing brilliant songs in 2018. Your list reads: BROCKHAMPTON”.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

BROCKHAMPTON

IRIDESCENCE

2018, Question Everything Inc./RCA Records

http://www.brckhmptn.com

BH_Iridescence