You don’t have to read too deeply into the record to get that impression, either. Even by the second track, the band has made the record’s theme clear: masculinity is fake. “Big Cat” and “Tough Guy” are two songs on the same thematic idea, working through the idea of the ridiculousness of masculinity one small step at a time.

More notable, though, is the music. Whether the album is thematically and conceptually sound is almost a side point when the music is so interesting. Few songs sound the same; Wild Beasts truly experiment here. “Big Cat” and “Tough Guy” sound totally different, as does “Alpha Female”. And each track could be considered a favourite; the quality doesn’t dip.

What’s interesting, at least to me, is the way that the guitars and the synths and electronics all blend. The way Trent Reznor used to marry electronics to his drum beats on Nine Inch Nails feels coyly copied on Boy King; the drums carry the record forward and push it into another stratosphere (check out “Get My Bang”). But yet, the electronics don’t feel synthetic. The guitars and the electronics are married, not unlike OK Computer or Kid A.

Perhaps the point is that masculinity never feels inauthentic, and the electronics are part of the album’s theme on the plasticity of male behaviour and alpha dominance. Even when the album leans towards electronic sounds on tracks like “2BU” (which strongly reminds me of Petite Noir), it feels like the band is being authentic to the point of being outrageous — or perhaps vice versa.

This musical building of sounds, though, makes the album feel almost surreal. It’s as if Boy King is a study of masculinity, immaturity, and excess — veiled through a study of art rock as a genre. The pinnacle of the record comes on “Celestial Creatures”, when Hayden Thorpe sings: “We are celestial creatures.” The surrounding music builds, rock music is deconstructed and put back together with electronic noise, and it feels like he’s telling the truth.

With Boy King, Wild Beasts pull out all the punches: they deconstruct their own music and put the pieces back together, arriving at an altogether different conclusion of what rock should look like in 2016. But they also deconstruct themselves and their genres and their meaning and find ways to marry music to theme. Boy King is one of the year’s most exhilarating records.

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Every track stands out, and it’s hard to pick favourites. It feels wrong to pick favourites when the album references some of the events that have shaken America over the past year. Hands Up is a clear reference to Trayvon Martin’s killing. Throughout the record, Dev Hynes (the man behind Blood Orange) shares his thoughts on blackness, the hood, and whether or not black people should wear hoods when they walk the streets.

It’s a powerful record. “Are you okay?” Hynes asks on the afore-mentioned Hands Up. The answer seems obvious. At the end of Thank You, a brief vocal moment says: “Let me tell you what it’s all about. A skin not considered equal. A meteor has more right than my people.” It hits hard.

At other times, it’s clear that Hynes is writing music for affected black women. The intro track captures a powerful vocal performance from a black woman trying to understand how to respect herself, how to understand who she is. These moments pop up on occasion throughout the record, and it’s clear that Hynes frequently for women.

I was thinking about it and wondering why he did that, and found myself wondering if approaching blackness from a woman’s perspective allows him to embrace the vulnerability his music requires. Whatever the reason, it’s a powerful approach that works and elevates his music to another level of sophistication and intelligence.

The music is great, too: But You and Desirée are two of my favourite tracks, even though they feel like they take inspiration from totally different parts of music’s sphere. Juice 1–4 has a tone that feels almost tropical in nature. Best to You’s vocal acrobatics is a phenomenal exercise in pop styling. Augustine is a great first single.

But despite juggling all these musical influences, every track comes out the other end feeling decidedly like a Blood Orange sound. Freetown Sound is music you make when you’re confident in yourself as an artist, aware of your place and your style, and willing to give your record a meaning and texture.

I don’t know where Freetown Sound lands among the year’s best records yet, but I have a feeling it might be near the top when the year is said and done. It’s certainly one of the year’s most important, especially given the tragic and horrific events of the past week.

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So yes, The Range is an electronic musician who samples a lot. He does it with reckless abandon. More importantly, though, is that he’s sampling from the unknowns on YouTube. In all likelihood, these are voices you’re unfamiliar with. You might assume that he’s rapping or singing some of these parts, or that he called some important rapper who’s signed to some important label, but it isn’t so.

Hinton doesn’t select these musicians because he think they’re silly or have no chance of success; the beats he’s crafted around their vocal lines have the utmost respect for their work. He’s elevating their material to another standard, even if they aren’t always at his. I don’t think he’s aware they’re not always at his level of quality; frankly, it’s not important.

Speaking of, the beats that Hinton has put together are impeccable. Tightly crafted, expertly woven together, each track is as good as the one that came before it, and it never feels like Hinton is recycling ideas. In fact, he’s arguably inspired by his samples. Calling the record Potential is perfect: it’s not just the potential of the artists that he’s elevating, but he’s elevated the potential of his own work.

Take Florida, the most popular track from the album: the beat isn’t entirely unfamiliar. You and I have both heard music like this before. Neither are the vocal elements, which I actually thought were sampled from a pop song. But combining them allows the song to be elevated above itself, and it feels much larger in scope than it is — especially since much of the beat is actually a quiet production.

As the album continues, tracks like Falling Out of Phase feel like they’re part of the story: Hinton’s story, the aspiring YouTuber’s story, and our story as listeners. By focusing on unknown singers instead of pop star samples, Hinton has put Potential on another level of cultural conversation. The album becomes about our place, as listeners and the people who sing along, in the context of music and musical history. We are involved in this conversation.

In a weird way, it makes Potential a much better record. It’s more involving as a result, something you want to listen to more closely. It’s a good electronic record, but this ability to get our intention and inform us of our own work and abilities makes it an important one. Potential is about much more than James Hinton. It’s about us.

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Odd spelling aside, the second thing you’ll notice is that you can’t place where this music is coming from. Sounding simultaneously like some sort of trip hop experiment and oddly African in its influence, Petite Noir can’t be pigeon-holed into a genre.

Petite Noir is one man from South Africa: Yannick Iluga, who handles all the vocals, music, and production on this debut record. He’s in his mid-twenties, but even now, his music sounds like a definitive take on a genre he calls “Darkwave”, which is like New Wave music put through an African vibe.

His voice sounds soulful, but it’s not soul music. He has loads of influence from music all across the board, but I can’t figure out if he’s de-constructing all of it for some sort of rhetorical thesis, or if he’s building upon their foundations in an attempt to do something new. His music is both sparse and intricate. It’s a stunning, stirring debut reminding you that if you’re willing to look hard enough, truly new music is out there.

Despite all of Petite Noir’s influences — Pitchfork cites his influences as everything from Kanye West to Senses Fail and U2 — Yannick sounds like somebody who’s wholly internalized everything he loves and made something new with it. In today’s musical climate, that’s rare.

At the end of the day, I’m still left with the question of what to call it. Instead of trying to narrow Yannick’s music to a single genre, it’s almost safer to give him a broader brush stroke to play with. For now, I’m going to call Petite Noir experimental pop. Now I’ll just spend the next couple years waiting for pop music to catch up with Yannick’s vision of the future.

The post Petite Noir: La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Fans of Holter will find her a little more laid-back here, less rollicking and rock ’n’ rolling and more reflective. Her voice suits this perfectly.

The icing on the cake is the production, which is densely layered and full of subtle intricacies. On my fifth listen, I was noticing things I hadn’t heard before. Holter’s voice is distracting as anything, like a more authentic Enya, so sometimes it’s difficult to even notice the rest of the experience supporting her. But everything about this record is top notch.

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Each of the tracks here is pretty long, with the longest one six seconds shy of twelve minutes, but it’s worth a listen all the way through with good headphones on. Like all great glitch music, Hopkins is writing songs that build and layer intricately, getting lost in repetition like your favourite techno.

While a lot of people love tracks like Collider and Form By Firelight, which are really glitchy, I prefer the moments where Jon pulls back a little bit. Form By Firelight actually has some great moments where he explores quieter sections, but I could live in Breathe This Air’s more somber moments and the quiet build of Immunity. (Actually, Immunity might be enough to bring some of us to tears. Something about the piano as it builds over glitchy sound effects is just so emotionally powerful.)

If you need good work music, or simply want to be blown away by a quiet hour spent wearing good headphones and listening to fascinating music, you’d be hard-pressed to find better.

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