Slingbaum - Slingbaum One
This is the most high profile project you’ve never heard of. There are features from countless legends like Erykah Badu, D’angelo, Questlove, Damon Albarn, FKA twigs, Bilal, Syd, Chris Dave, Jameel Bruner, even 90 year-old jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal is on here. The project is only 15 minutes long, and you could only get access to the project by buying the vinyl. It’s all under the name Slingbaum, which no one knows exactly who that is. All anyone knows publicly is that his name is Terry Slingbaum and a picture of his driver’s license that he sent to Pitchfork (pictured below). I’ve never seen any promotion or release quite like this project, and thankfully the music follows suit.
The project feels like a jungle at night, full of unnerving creatures possibly lurking around any corner. It’s all encompassing, claustrophobic, and somehow filled to the brim with jazz. Erykah Badu sounds somewhere between her eccentric self and a horror movie villain on the opener “Behoove”. “Strangers” has FKA twigs crooning over this minimal guitar line, some beautiful organs, and barely on beat drums that could only be done by Questlove. Damon Albarn and Syd sing back and forth on the first half of “Morphine” before it devolves into something completely different that highlights Damon over a bass clarinet and other assorted brass instruments. There’s also plenty of ambient noises that help each track transition into each other that really helps sell this futuristic and almost nightmarish journey.
There really isn't anything quite like this project. There’s more high profile artists in these three songs than most artists' careers! The release has left this project extremely limited for consumption, and is still almost impossible to find online even after people having the digital files for almost four months. The lore surrounding this project could easily have overtaken the music, but the music does hold up on its own. I’d say that this easily deserves a listen and everyone reading should listen to it, but there’s nowhere to find it at this point.
After his previous albums being overarching, maximalist, and highly conceptual, this project provides a break to that. It instead continues his first two projects ever, the last released six years ago when he was sixteen years old. CTV3 consists of laid back, summery love ballads that all run together. He recently said that The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is his favorite album ever, and that is easily apparent in this project. Many of the songs are under 3 minutes, and try to achieve the extremely minimal and quick songwriting The Beatles perfected. But many of the highlights come when he extends the song lengths to their full potential. “Cabin Fever” is reminiscent of Post Malone’s “Circles”, but it’s done a lot better. “Rainbow Bap” features the best mix of his rapped verses and melodic choruses on the entire project. “Endless Summer” with Raury features some quality rapping, and I’m just glad to hear Raury again after his profile has decreased dramatically over the last few years. Even “Fallin for You” with Justin Bieber feels like it’d be a perfect song for Christmas season in the mall, but in a good way. This project isn’t Jaden as his most adventurous or maximal, but it might be his most concise yet.
Ian brings loads of old school funk and R&B back on AUNTIE. He teams up with the electro-funk duo Chromeo, who produces the entire project and helps bring the Prince styled funk back from the 80s. One of the most obvious examples of this is the single “Princess Pouty”, which features these blaring synth lines and talkbox vocals in the background that transport the listener back a few decades. “Lady Bug” has maybe the largest chorus on the entire project, with Ian’s vocals shining through over these heavy basslines. The song even has a fantastic instrumental portion during the bridge before a final, glorious chorus. “First Love” is a mid tempo groove with a great combination of an insane baseline, warped background vocals, and some quality guitar picking. The final song even brings out a similar style to Blood Orange, who he’s toured with for the past few years. The more I listen to this project, the better it gets and becomes apparent that Ian really came through with something special here, and that this is easily a must listen for people who miss the funk of 80s pop music, especially Prince and the whole Minneapolis sound.
This jazz fusion trio out of Chicago is back again with this new five song EP, The Eternal Boombox. The trio consists of Nico Segal, who has played on most of Chance the Rapper’s material, as well as for Kanye, J. Cole, and many more. The other two are brothers, Julien and Everett, who play the majority of the instruments. All three were childhood friends and they find themselves making some really unique jazz fusion on this project. There are some more normal, subdued jazz fusion, like on the title track. But a song like “Avalanche” is going to be pretty hard to find anywhere else. The giant and dirty synths on that song, along with the fast paced drums make it sound more like a maximalist hip hop track than a jazz. There’s also the beautiful, string heavy “And So On…” that provides a great transitional moment in the project. The JuJu Exchange show that they’re refusing to be put into a box with this project, and a name to pay attention to for the future.
Big Sean has long been a punching bag for many hip hop fans over the past decade, mainly for his corny lyrics. While there’s a large following that loves him, there’s a large following that can’t stand him. With this album, Big Sean comes through with his best project yet. It’s not without its flaws though; there’s still some bad dad joke lines, some filler in the 21 song tracklist, and his love songs with Jhene Aiko really don’t go over well. Overall though, this project is full of his best songs. “Deep Reverence” is a great, introspective song with another personal posthumous feature from Nipsey Hussle. “Guard Your Heart” has a gorgeous opening section from Anderson Paak, along with some great feature verses from Earlly Mac and Wale. And of course, I have to mention “Friday Night Cypher” with about every prominent Detroit rapper from the past decade. While a lot of them just fade together, Eminem, Royce, and Big Sean come through with the most memorable performance. This is easily Big Sean’s best project so far, and hopefully he can continue to progress on his next projects.
Ricky Reed has quietly produced some of the biggest songs of the past few years, including Lizzo’s chart topper “Truth Hurts” and Twenty One Pilots’s “Ride”. During the first few months of quarantine, Ricky decided to put together his first solo album all over zoom, and this is the result. Every track has a feature, which lends to the all-over-the-place feeling that the album has. There are quite a few highlights on here though, including “Real Magic” with Terrace Martin, which was the lead single and is still the best song on the project. It’s a great and catchy pop song with some quality vocals from St. Panther. Leon Bridges and Kiana Lede lend their vocals to the mid tempo jam that is “Better”. Lido Pimienta has the best vocal performance on the album on her song “Catch Me”, where she alternates from English and Spanish. There are some other entertaining moments, but much of the album just blends together as run of the mill pop and R&B. That said, the highlights on here are definitely worth checking out as you may enjoy them better than I did.
Sylvan has been making some extremely personal and emotional hip hop for the past decade, but he’s decided to release a project of loosies that didn’t make either his 2018 projects or his upcoming project. Since it is just a collection of demos and loosies, there’s not really a cohesive theme, concept, or much introspection. The intro has probably the best rapping on the entire project, as he paints a vivid picture of his life during the current pandemic. Songs like “Perfect Alignment DEMO”, “Sets Honor DEMO”, and “Shoot The Fade DEMO” feature these minimalistic trap beats that Sylvan flows pretty squarely over. “We Aite DEMO” features this fantastic piano laden beat with Sylvan trying out some singing. This is far from his best work, and judging from how crazy he was rapping on his last mixtape in 2018, this project most likely isn’t even considered a mixtape. And for a project whose whole purpose is to get fans excited for the full project, this succeeds in its job. Hopefully he’ll come through with another fantastic and emotional album in the coming months.
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