Lovely concept, great execution. In parallel to his From Midnight to Sunrise. Here its a relationship from End to start., with each track featuring a female vocalist bringing what seems a bygone concept nowadays, this is a modern duet record and it works best upon multiple listens.

A record that suffocates in its hip-hop energy at first but unscrolls itself to be one of the most gorgeous explorations of R&B mixing with jazz I've ever experienced. This record is so unapologetic either you're fucking with it or you're lost to the genre's it hops across. My advice if the opening section doesn't appeal scroll forward if it does you're in for a strange ride, that might be your favourite of this year or any year you listen to it for the first time if not I don't know learn ... read more

Curtains pulled back, an unveiling of a sound there but not with its studio polished completion. A memoir of the scourge of 90's record labels. There is real texture worked upon here that I really enjoy. So happy I have so many pieces now to piece together what could have been a stunning debut instead of its suit and tie actuality. A great character study of what would become such a seminal record in its genre and the actual sound its members had made, you can see where the sound was pushed ... read more

double sigh, keeps baiting me in with gorgeous singles and an album that doesn't know what the fuck it wants to be.
Perhaps he is a singles focused artist which is understandable in this day&age but fuck me this was a bummer after a strong start and an interesting dystopian visual world. Will give a hundred more listens, pray its a grower.

This album is between a 58 to a 73, perhaps the curse of modern pop (and I mean that as popular music) being 18 - 45 tracks long. you can have some ... read more

sigh

Wanted to like this but it's a big ol' miss.
His beat selection feels out of touch (a jazzy instrumentation for a classy come back maybe?)
He has a great story to tell, but some of his bars are just yikes, rapping like its 2015

Favourites:
Deep Reverence (ft. Nipsey Hussle), Story By Dave Chappelle, Everything That's Missing (ft. Dwele), Full Circle.

Bad Lines:
"I know I'm a gift, but I think out the box" - Why Would I Stop?

"No more breaks, dawg, it's time to break hearts, I ... read more

She bully meee

The composition of these tracks are gorgeous, going up instead of left. His lyrical content, however, needs a lott of work.

A dream of intimacy waking to emptied bed. A sleepy mediation on the loneliness of heartbreak and the quiet drifting of time. One of those records, you have to be quiet in order to hear.

"I've been running around in circles
Pretending to be myself
Why would somebody do this on purpose
When they could do something else?
Drowning out the morning birds
With the same three songs over and over
I wish I wrote it, but I didn't so I learn the words
Hum along 'til the feeling's gone forever"

I'll stick to the present here, the past is noise (a particularly bad noise) but if I were to speak on my past opinions of Logic this record will have put me in my place. A lovely goodbye that is somehow even more impressive than his debut was, hits like a Stephen curry buzzer-beater in 2015. In complete thought, Logic is walking away with a fuck you and have a nice day (Just about as clean as when Jay Z retired and returned like Jordan wearing the 4-5) while No I.D. laughs straight to the bank ... read more

The formula is gone, in order to notice what has changed, one would have to listen to "reputation" again and I'd rather not. What I will say is that things seem more organic here likely due to a less extensive studio polish being doused all across this record. In turn, the organic-sections of this record have been able to grow out from its lyrical "matter". There are still a lot of ugh lines here but admittedly I was never her target audience (I am the last person who ... read more

So this record was made piece by piece while being streamed on twitch. Taking random ideas from fans and using them to guide the development of each track. The result is a white-listed album for Twitch which joins the legions of average instrumental albums out there especially across Soundcloud. Its whitelisting though, hopefully, births a new era in twitch music-making, where musicians make music that can be used by twitch users while streaming. And as such, further building on the homologous ... read more

Endlessly groovy, utterly repetitive.

Favourites: Slorping and Bean

63:
Hard to decide how to feel about this record. I think in the end, it is a meaningful gesture to a batch of sounds that could have been so much more.

I mean I'm not complaining at all about new versions of songs I've loved.
Since tracks, I used to dislike such as "Sickness", "What's in the Eye", "B12" etc have greatly benefitted from being reimagined. Unfortunately, the opposite can be said about tracks such as "Just Like Heroin" or "Soul ... read more

"Monachopsis" is a gorgeous opener building the world of Obscure Sorrows. The rest of the record's tracks are broken buildings of sound, shifting in and out of tone and mood. This record feels as if it were made for a movie or 8-bit videogame.

Instead, each song sculpted out of words not yet officially coined. This record then attempts to give sound to feelings the English language has as of yet birthed. The result is a record that has many interesting ideas but nothing as concrete ... read more

A record caught within a beautiful shade of sound before its descent into unprocessed soundscapes that pluck and pull at its sleepy core.

Favourites: No Time Left, Corrupt Happiness, One More Song, Innocent Haunting, Run From Me & Past Memories.

another 1, I've been stoked on Octavian since his pairing with Skepta, very happy with this surprise addition and this continued shining of UK acts through Gorillaz pieces if anything else. Song Machine is shaping up to be a celebration of UK music and I'm all for it. Hopefully (and I'm thinking out loud RN as always!) we see some Noise Rock or duh a Thom Yorke feature.

The last two tracks on this record, now that was something.

the loops are dusty, the dinner nice.

It's intelligible and not tone-deaf, so its a W for KSI. He mimics every mumble rapper convention with ease, which isn't saying much, but again it is surprising how competent this record is, how low has the standard become? Other artists who pushed through from YouTube have made very credible careers since; (Biebs and Joji especially) But for KSI to walk into the rap sphere so easily is either a testament to his hustle or how fucking sad hip-hop's "pop" derivation of sound is, I'm ... read more