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Releases
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09 07 21 SAVAGE Issa Album Slaughter Gang / Epic
It wouldn’t be wrong to call Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, a maverick of heady sci-fi inspired electronica. Lopatin has created a strange world of sound with an inclination towards grotesque beauty. His revered 2015 album Garden of Delete was a scary, gloopy and glorious soundtrack to the narrative of a fictionalised humanoid called ‘Erza’ – a sort of soundtrack to our generation's struggle to adapt and immerse ourselves into the virtual civilisation of the internet. This time round, Lopatin was recruited by independent filmmaker brothers Josh and Benny Safdie to score their crime thriller Good Time, which stars Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Already, Lopatin’s score has been honoured with the prestigious Cannes Soundtrack Award, beating former Oscar nominee Jonny Greenwood to the title. Listen to the OST without the film, and Lopatin’s music still stands up as a spellbinding record. The opening title track progresses from brooding tectonic bass to celestial synths, with Tangerine Dream-esque arpeggios driving the suspense. Bail Bond’s fizzy drones build under jarring dramatic dialogue and sleazy riffs shred over a painfully brief amen break. Romance Apocalypse has a hook that would make the iconic Miami Vice composer Jan Hammer proud, propelling you into a trashy 80s crime world. The Pure and The Damned sees a weathered Iggy Pop gush with hopeless romanticism: “The pure always act from love/ The damned always act from love/ The truth is an act of love”. The striking sincerity and sombre sense of receding in Pop’s delivery moved me to tears. I can only imagine the harrowing emotion this record underscores.
WizKid’s newest release does what it says on the tin. It sees the Nigerian artist go far and wide with touches of dancehall, RnB, house and high profile collaborators like Diplo, Drake and Chris Brown. While the album was clearly made with an international audience in mind – Wizzy slips from Yoruba to English and back with ease on each track – English is the more dominant language throughout. However, it all makes sense considering the singer’s status as a global pop star. Over the past few years the Lagos lad has managed to transcend and breakout of any boxes that the media has attempted to put African artists in. Sounds From The Other Side is full of high energy tracks for the club. We learn how WizKid likes his Hennessy – “straight with no chaser” – and get a few clues about the health of his love life with amorous tracks like All For Love, which features South African star Bucie, whose voice is rich and smooth like honey as she sings of hearts filled with joy in her native tongue Xhosa over a bouncy beat. The collaborations generally work, with the Drake team-up Come Closer being an omnipresent lead single and Ty Dolla $ign providing longing melodies on the DJ Mustard produced Dirty Wine, made in the LA beatmaker's true handwriting. With the release being referred to officially as a new “project”, the fair amount of dispute on whether Sounds From The Other Side is an actual album or a mixtape is irrelevant. This record is just as good as a rose by any other name, and it serves as a project that'll likely go far to reinforce the original Starboy's international stardom.
Having rapidly earned the reputation of Atlanta’s hardest new rapper, last year 21 Savage teamed up with Metro Boomin for their pitch-perfect nine track project Savage Mode. Among his many accolades, Metro has become Future’s most trusted producer – and therefore a chief architect of the curious cultural phenomenon that is depressive turn-up music. The minimal and melancholic sound Metro tailored for Savage Mode cloaked 21’s murmured threats with sad ambience, suggesting pain behind the rapper’s dented shield of toxic masculinity. This time, the stakes are higher. The official album status is still a gesture that’s taken seriously in the hip-hop industry, while 21 Savage has become a minor celebrity due to his relationship with Amber Rose and the “Issa” meme (when asked what the cross tattoo on his forehead signifies in a video interview, 21 bluntly replied: “Issa knife”), which has inspired a ‘lifestyle brand’ and a Spotifycreated promotional website alongside this album’s title. Metro Boomin handles the bulk of Issa Album’s production, and the LP largely sticks to the formula of Savage Mode – albeit with extra musical decoration. The busier the beat, the more 21 Savage’s effortless vocal style is eclipsed, and his foray into RnB with the DJ Mustard-produced FaceTime is a straight up misfire. Issa Album doesn’t quite improve on a trademark sound, and there’s the nagging feeling that 21 Savage’s classic record is already behind him. But lyrically there are interesting diversions from stone-faced nihilism. 21’s disclaimer that he “ain't being political” on Nothin New turns to be a red herring before he flings out thoughtful rhymes fit for the wokest MCs ("Civil rights came so they flood the hood with coke/ Breakin' down my people, tryna kill our faith and hope”) and there’s pleasure to be found in the knowledge that, after all his troubles, 21 Savage is embracing the joy of being a successful musician: ”Used to jump niggas, now we jumping in a crowd/ Used to make my mama cry, but now I make her proud”.
! Aine Devaney
! Hamda Issa-Salwe
! Davy Reed
ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Good Time OST Warp
WIZKID Sounds From the Other Side Starboy / RCA Records
07 L ANA DEL REY Lust for Life Polydor / Interscope
REVIEWS
Lana Del Rey is at a crossroads. For each of her four album covers, the artist has been pictured alongside an automobile, that great American symbol that purrs with ideas of power and freedom. These qualities wouldn’t have been lost on an artist who’s fine-tuned her own iconography by draping herself in a red, white and blue patchwork of mythologies – from Old Hollywood to Brooklyn hipsterism. But now, her beloved ‘murica has screwed her over as bad as any of those douchebags she was dating. In the lead up to this record, Lana Del Rey broke her embargo on politics by inviting fans to hex the incumbent Trump administration. In a recent Pitchfork profile she confessed she’d sooner stand in front of static than the American flag, and Lust For Life marks the moment that pop’s favourite sad girl turns her gaze to the bigger picture. “Is it the end of America?” she asks on When the World Kept Dancing, before the 32-year-old advises us to, “Lean into the fucking youth”. Of course, this being Lana Del Rey, the politics comes with a side order of high camp: God Bless America – and All the Beautiful Women In It is a Metro Boomin assisted torch song punctuated by guitar and gunshots. There’s developments elsewhere too; the production is again heady, perfumed and hip-hop informed, but this time the music’s decorated with a dressing up box of 60s and 70s references. Tomorrow Never Came features Sean Ono Lennon on a track that not only signposts The Beatles but crams in references to Bob Dylan and Elton John as well. There’s Phil Spectorish drums and motorcycle revs on The Weeknd featuring Lust For Life, a song so supersized only the lyric “Climb up the ‘H’ of the Hollywood sign” would do. The Malibu Gothic of Summer Bummer concedes to modernity by calling on Playboi Carti and ASAP Rocky, but where Carti’s adlibs are effective as part of the woozy production, ASAP Rocky’s on-thenose verse comes close to destroying the illusion. Stevie Nicks is a more natural fit, embellishing slow-burning ballad Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems with a grizzled grace. But really, this is an album that’s at its best when it rhymes personal ennui with an ache of the nation. On Coachella, Woodstock of My Mind Del Rey paints an image of her besides the main stage, her enjoyment of Father John Misty tempered by thoughts of global conflict. It’s hilarious, self parodical, but the metaphor is apt: hippie counterculture was, of course, the last time the US got its ideals smashed. Where once Lana Del Rey’s world was as small as the circumference of the muscular arms that encircled her, now it’s as big as the fears that rattle us all – and it’s this widening of her vision that makes Lust For Life her most compelling LP yet. Pop music, like the truck on the cover, is a means of escape, of empowerment. ”This is my commitment, my modern manifesto, I’m doing it for all of us,” runs the pre-chorus to the closer. It’s title? Get Free. Amen.
To date Blondes have been associated with RVNG Intl., a label that has provided a natural home for their adventurous style of hardware techno. Now, they’ve followed up 2015’s Persuasion EP with this full length, which sees them move from an experimental electronic environment to premier league techno temple R&S. It’s been stated that Warmth is an intentional move towards a more focused, immediate sound in line with the label Blondes now find themselves on, and viewed as a whole it does feel like the duo have been successful in that mission. There’s a whiff of the anthemic in Trust, while Tens sounds like it was built with big, dark rooms in mind. The melodic hooks and twinkling overtones on KDM could even reach as far as a festival stage, given the right push. While this subtle shift in direction may have edged some of the errant qualities out of Blondes’ music, the rich and dynamic approach to production remains. There’s a staggering amount of detail pounded into each track, and equal space afforded for subtlety too. In making that dicey break for the wider contemporary techno scene, Blondes have managed to keep the quality of their craft intact.
! Louise Brailey
! Oli Warwick
BLONDES Warmth R&S