Blood Orange - "Negro Swan"
(Domino / Goodtogo, from 24th of August)
Do not let yourself be seduced by the relaxed, gurgling yacht rock groove. Hardly established, a slow-rising Moog sound sounds like a sonic alarm siren. "Orlando" is the name of this caressing and disturbing first song on Blood Orange's new album. Devonté "Dev" Hynes sings in the sad falsetto a shockingly fatalistic text: "First kiss was the floor / but God does not make a difference when you do not get up". And suddenly you know where the funky disco beat takes place: in the queer nightclub of Orlando, Florida, where the security guard Omar Mateen killed 49 people in 2016 and injured more than 50 others. The "kiss" with the hard floor, dying or bleeding, that is also the confrontation with a drab reality that Hynes perceives as a black, gay man in our time: It makes no difference whether you get up again; The company does not care about it in case of doubt.
"Orlando," one of the best tracks on the fourth album Hynes releases as Blood Orange, is not just about the massacre, but also about the painful experiences with school-based bullys in East London, where he grew up in the 1990s. "Negro Swan," a variation of "Black Swan," which could be translated as an "ugly duckling" into German metaphors, is "an exploration of his own and many other types of black depression," he told the Observer in an interview. "an honest look into the dark corners of black existence and the constant fears of queer and differently colored people".
Hynes refines and deepens what began on his masterful previous album "Freetown Sound" as a search for identity and exploration of his African-Caribbean family roots. As in the past, he also uses the hip-hop stylistic device of the Interlude for "Negro Swan" to put specific messages between his lyrically encoded lyrics. Audio clips from conversations he has with writer and transgender activist Janet Mock tell, for example in "Family", about experiences in Otherness - and at the same time give hope that in the community, whether from friends or relatives , Comfort and security can be found.
Andreas Borcholte's playlist KW 34
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1 Blood Orange: Charcoal Baby
2 Neneh Cherry: Kong
3 Robyn: Missing U
4 Mitski: Why Did not You Stop Me
5 Tomberlin: Self-Help
6 John Grant: Love Is Magic
7 Moses Sumney: Rank & File
8 Low: Disarray
9 Ariana Grande: The Light Is Coming (featuring Nicki Minaj)
10 Nicki Minaj: Coco Chanel (feat.
From this interplay of encouragement and anguish, this restrained and muted, but ultimately very gripping album draws its suspense, which it carries over 50 minutes. Only pointedly, Hynes makes use of the ingredients that first made him known as an indie folk and rock artist (Test Icicles, Lightspeed Champion), then as a sensitive R & B innovator and sought-after producer (including Solange, Haim, Tinashe). For example, in "Saint", the most unambiguous pop song on the album, in the finger-clicking "Nappy Wonder" or in the refrained "Chewing Gum", which receives an additional hip-hop vibe through A $ AP Rocky's Gastrap.
Away from such crowd-pleasers, there is an almost solid sound that uses funk guitars and saxophones to create a nostalgic jazz flow that extends the early sixties (think: "Maiden Voyage" or the early Dolphy) into the fusion foothills of the eighties transcends ("jewelry"); it's Hynes's postmodern fragmented kind of spiritual, African-American-inspired music, an elegant, well-seasoned gospel in which even rap bigpaw Puff Daddy has a surprisingly humble performance ("Hope").
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Can you break sometimes? "Hynes sings in the central track" Charcoal Baby ". He longs not to wake up every morning with the feeling of being on the edge, not belonging. The talent of pouring that sense of "alienation" into deeply moving, comforting and redemptive music unites him with other key artists of this complicated time, with D'Angelo and Kendrick Lamar, with Frank Ocean and Moses Sumney. His swan song will - hopefully - not be. (8.5) Andreas Borcholte
Mitski - "Be the Cowboy"
(Dead Oceans / Cargo, since 17 August)
She had fallen in love with the war, but no one had told her he was long gone. "And it left a pearl in my head / And I roll it around every night, just to watch it glow". A pearl in the head? That hurts, even if it shines so much. And sometimes pain feels like glowing. "The Pearl" is just one of 14 short gems on Mitski Miyawaki's fifth album, which sends out that sinister glow : Happy, as the US songwriter pointed out two years ago on "Puberty 2", is for them a word that rhymes with creepy. Something rubs, irritates and pisses always, and in doubt, what she ransoms in "Lonesome Love" as a lazy Riot Grrrl echo: "Nobody fucks me like me".
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Musically, however, Mitski has largely gotten rid of the ostentatious roar and noise of their guitars to sit more often to the piano, their original instrument - or simply to leave spaces. For the melancholic-beguiling disco-pop of "Nobody", for example, reminiscent of the Cardigans. Her voice, with which she recites her screwball dramas, and thus her self-confidence in her own power as a poet, may now be in the foreground - and jubilate with laconic pathos, sometimes trombones and trumpets, where Tori Amos once stood provided the reason for this kind of self-empowering but always self-destructive femininity music.
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Wednesdays at 23 o'clock there is the Hamburger Web-Radio ByteFM a listened-Mixtape with many songs from the discussed records and highlights from the personal playlist of Andreas Borcholte.
Mitski's rescue is her corrosive sense of humor: "And I'm the idiot with the painted face, taking up space / But when he walks in, I am loved, I am loved," she exposes Wifey's riot rituals, which she too on the cover, as pathetic in "Me And My Husband". Oh, the bitterness behind the brave façade face of the lonely cowboy. (8.0) Andreas Borcholte
Young Thug - "Slime Language"
( Young Stoner Life Records / 300 Entertainment, since 17 August )
Few musicians can be sincerely hated like Young Thug and his overblown bubble gum rap. But the fact is too: The Rapper, born in Atlanta as Jeffery Lamar Williams, is one of the most influential artists of the past six or seven years. Granted, not in lyrical terms. Not much goes on in his music. According to his own statement, Williams never needs more than a few minutes for his lines - and you realize that.
But it is in this utter contempt for the hip-hop traditions of storytelling that the 27-year-old has shaped a revolutionary style. Between the rhythmic incantations of Latin American reggaeton and the vocal range of a commercial dog whistle, the rapper has cobbled together a car-tuned style that sounds like a pack of gummy bears: insanely sweet, always a bit nauseating, but you can not stop either.
He has inspired a whole range of newcomers to take more risks, to find their own voice and finally emancipate themselves from traditional hip-hop narratives on masculinity and harshness. Without Young Thug there would probably be no Lil Uzi Vert, no Lil Yachty and no Nothing, Nowhere.
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That's why "Slime Language" is only consistent. Strictly speaking, the album does not qualify as its sixth, but is a first compilation of its label Young Stoner Life, founded under the wing of the trap-factory 300 Entertainment. The goal: to give young talents a development space they would not otherwise have.
A good idea, which leads to "Slime Language" but rather mixed results. For 50 minutes, the well-known crooked beats shuffle out of the loudspeakers, but rarely get too overwhelmed by rousing trap-pounders ("Dirty Shoes" feat Gunna) and again and again to the tough soundtrack for the substance-induced elevator ride into the ether ("Oh Yeah" feat. HiDoraah).
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Willams' still amazing vocal versatility can largely save such mistakes, but not newcomers like Gunna, Karlae and Duke. "Slime Language" simply gives them the wrong tapestry to unfold. After all, despite its new presentation as a musical student pilot, it provides a fresh insight into Young Thug's very own world - and obviously nobody else can cope with that. (6.5) Dennis Pohl
Rating: From "0" (absolute disaster) to "10" (absolute classic)