Mac Miller, Swimming
[Warner Bros.]
Grade: B
Mac Miller has operated in many modes over the course of his career. He’s been a fratty master of ceremonies, a depressive Serious Artist, a half-convincing loverman. Swimming features the full suite of personas coagulated into a single voice. With a sobriety (GO:OD AM) and a breakup (The Divine Feminine) record behind him, Miller’s now taking the full measure of things. “2009” is about curbing self-destructive tendencies and “Dunno” zooms out on a toxic relationship: “It’s so cute you wanna be like me / Wouldn’t you rather get along?” Miller sounds great when he’s whining, croaking, stretching syllables like warm mozzarella. Swimming’s spare, dreamy production allows him to do a lot of that. On “Small Worlds” he says he gets “more peace at slow speeds” these days. Rappers are prone to talking silly shit, but the rest of Swimming backs that claim up. He’s as serene as ever.
RIYL: Curren$y. Chance The Rapper. Kendrick Lamar’s mellower work.
Start here: It’s difficult to make apathy sound as thrilling as Miller does on “Conversation Pt. 1.” Over sleepy-menacing keys, he’s extravagantly bored—“Everybody famous, everybody wild, everybody dangerous”—and also at his most magnetic. [Colin McGowan]
GAIKA, Basic Volume
[Warp]
Grade: B+
There’s hardly a corner of London that Gaika Tavares doesn’t scan and incorporate into Basic Volume, his full-length debut. Sweetened R&B melodies, throbbing dancehall bass lines, oppressively cloudy grime textures, clacking industrial percussion—all of it coheres under the force of his impressively intricate production and songwriter’s eye for detail. Which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy listening. Basic Volume is as pocked and scratched as the view through an acid-etched tube car window, and the visions of the city on the other side of the glass are accordingly ugly and apocalyptic; “London City isn’t build on God,” he sings in “Crown & Key.” But Tavares finds strength in the oppressive atmosphere. He bends his voice in ways reminiscent of Frank Ocean (with whom he shares a producer, Buddy Ross), and the heavy bass power of British sound-system culture informs nearly every track here. Basic Volume is noisy and abrasive, but it’s also frequently beautiful, and it speaks as loudly as it takes to be heard.
RIYL: Kelela. Frank Ocean. Lotic. Turning anger into power.
Start here: “Black Empire (Killmonger Riddim)” is a showcase for everything GAIKA does well as a producer and singer, from the commanding toasting and dancehall stomp of the chorus to the gray atmosphere he patiently builds in the verses. [Marty Sartini Garner]
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