Listening: Feb. 1–14, 2018
Quick thoughts on Brent Faiyaz, K. Michelle, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Rae Morris, Especia and Philosophy and Dance
Halfway into the second month of the year, and I’m still trying to see what sticks. No new releases in particular have grabbed me. No old albums have introduced me to sounds or ideas to further pursue. I guess I’m covering my blind spots for now. These selections see what’s out there for R&B, but I could always use more dance and rap as well.
Below are six albums that made me want to jot some quick thoughts down. If you want to hear more tunes, you can check out my ongoing Spotify playlist with all interesting finds from February.
Sonder Son by Brent Faiyaz (Lost Kids, 2017)
An artist wears an influence very familiar to you, and the mutual interest in said musical influence fosters some kind of bond: it’s a common experience with music. This is not the case with me and Brent Faiyaz, though he somewhat draws me in anyway because I recognize my friends’ favorite records in what he chooses to build off for his own material. His guitar-noodling and twinkling keys suggests to me that he most likely had a good diet of turn-of-the-century neo-soul, as did some of my good friends, who make music cut from a similar fabric of records. Faiyaz got a solid foundation, yet the songs of Sonder Son seems too loose, as if he’s figuring out in real time what exactly he wants the song to form into. Wearing taste on his sleeves can get only get him so far, and mutual connection can only do so much to get to know a friend of a friend, but it’s a good enough introduction.
[5]
KIMBERLY: The People I Used to Know by K. Michelle (Atlantic, 2017)
The songs that burn the most are ones where personal disses dig like daggers. A memorable word of spite is when K. Michelle wishes her ex-partner’s child turns out ugly. Another instance sees her teasing what initially might have similarly been a one-liner into a full-fledged song: “Fuck Your Man” is a song-length reminder that her enemy is lucky she had been “raised right” and knew better not to seek revenge. Wit isn’t her strongest suit, however. She cycles through puns and references with much misses as hits. It lands better for her sex jams, where wordplay like “eating off a plate” is better suited from the jump. Sometimes, the effort plays off especially when the personal bleeds into her talk of attraction like in “Crazy Like You.” With 21 songs, though, you’re bound to hit at least one.
[6]
PARTYNEXTDOOR 3 (P3) by PARTYNEXTDOOR (OVO Sound, 2016)
Like his collaborator Drake, PARTYNEXTDOOR likes to sing about an emotional void; he’s usually trying to mend it by calling someone way too early in the A.M. And like Drake, his music hangs low with its soul hollowed out. He provided his fellow Torontonian the beat for “Legend,” and his ghastly hallmarks float all over it, especially that slowed-down flip of Ginuwine’s “So Anxious”: PND’s own music sounds like a ghost of what people call “baby-making music” but instead his sings about not a beautiful union but dead ends.
“Baby-making music” is a term popular enough to become a shorthand for some informal if not quaint subgenre — a casual offshoot of quiet storm, perhaps — but this prude always avoids that word because of the assumption that labeling a record as such stamps it as one’s personal choice for, uh, baby making. That descriptor is what a coworker described the music of PND as they and I heard his third album for the first time. I can see how they got there, though I must say it’s one sad choice of music to spend an evening with. It collects songs about carnal desire, sure, but its slow crawl draws out less sensuality than desperation, too downtrodden for it to sound sexy. For what it’s worth, though, Ginuwine’s …The Bachelor also spends its hour singing about loneliness. It’s honestly a sad album, though I find it hard to sell its sadness to people.
[7]
Someone Out There by Rae Morris (Atlantic, 2018)
It eased things to learn “Atletico” is not Rae Morris’s usual mode of operation in Someone Out There. It instead finds her trying her best to step out of her comfort zone by unfurling her freely contorting voice so she can break free from this self-made shell of introversion. What actually comes out might be familiar for introverts: she overcompensates, so she ends up shouting, laughing, simply reacting too loud than she naturally should. I have faith she can tame this grizzly voice into shaper shapes in the future. But for now, I appreciate more when she surrenders to the bashful personality she considers a crutch.
[6]
GUSTO by Especia (Tsubasa, 2014) / THE FOUNDER by Philosophy no Dance (Sony, 2017)
Never mind the time at which these idol groups exist in and the “vaporwave” tag that graces one of them. Presented upon face value, Especia in their first full-length GUSTO and Philosophy no Dance in their second full-length THE FOUNDER sound like similar groups: both riff off of Japanese city pop from the ’70s/’80s and the easy-listening pop tunes that the artists of those decades pulled from. Of course, Especia takes a different corner from those references than Philosophy. GUSTO favors shimmery synth keyboards while THE FOUNDER is enamored by horn sections. (If the album cover wasn’t the giveaway, Especia is that “vaporwave” group.) Maybe that preference of sound over another explains why one sticks to me more than the other despite both playing around with similar styles. I certainly find gliding keyboard riffs and flashy bass lines more appealing than warm sax and slap bass.
[7] / [6]
Other albums that caught my attention these few weeks…
- Burna Boy: Outside (2018)
- Culture Club: Colour by Numbers (1983)
- CY8ER: Hello New Generation (2018)
- Inner City: Fire (1990)
- Lil Peep: Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 1 (2017)
- Norm Talley: Norm-A-Lize (2017)
- OMB Peezy & Sherwood Marty: Young and Reckless (2018)
- OnePixcel: Monochrome (2017)
- Sevdaliza: ISON (2017)
- Yasutaka Nakata: Digital Native (2018)
