In Revue- 'M3LL155X' (FKA twigs)

I'll admit before I actually heard FKA twigs' surprise EP release M3LL155X my initial reaction was one of concern. Not for anything happening in the UK singer's life or the scant few details I had read about the album. Nay nay.

My concern was for how it would be received. It can be especially hard for artists who come out of the gate with such an assured, specifically styled album as twigs' LP1 to ever capture that zeitgeist again. When an artist brings such force so early, the public expectation machine can go haywire and nothing they do in the wake will live up. See Interpol for some of the "best" proof of the past decade or so. Hell I know people that still insist Kanye West's initial soul-rap period was his best, which is sort of frightening. People cling to first impressions way too much.

Fortunately that's not something to worry about with twigs' M3LL155X (pronounced Melissa). Working with Beyoncé producer Boots, twigs has crafted an album that stands alongside LP1, not in its shadow. There's no feeling of unnecessary duplication. The pair, along with producers Cy An and Tic, take the decaying drum machines and cacophonous noise of LP1 and project them farther outward. "Figure 8" starts with a terrifying low-end burble that gives credence to twigs' exhaling "It's a miracle we're still alive." Hollow ringing tubes hail "Glass & Patron," before a swarm of static comes flying through. Everything is pulverized by drums, which are loud and wobbly enough to cause heart arrhythmia.

That's even true of "In Time," the closest M3LL155X comes to an outright love song. "I will be better and we will be stronger and you will be greater," twigs declares with an uncertain resolve. She chest puffs "You've got a goddamn nerve," but that missive sits atop unstable keys and shifting drums. Nothing feels certain. The Weeknd's own dark R&B has been a comparison point before, but nowhere is the truer than on "In Time." Both artists have a way of sounding resolute, even when everything around them signals chaos. Twigs promises "I'll be home soon" in "Mothercreep"'s swirling outro, though she previously confesses "In words I lose" and "I don't know who my mother is." Realistically there's no home to go home to, just the false ideals of one.

So much of M3LL155X lyrically chases that idea of figuring out who you are when there's no template to go off of. In the aforementioned "Figure 8" she longs to live through someone else's "vice," before acknowledging "you're more alive than what I'll ever be." The admission's doubly painful delivered in a warped vocal that makes you think she's so world-weary she can't even muster the strength to sing for herself. That fragility carries over to "I'm Your Doll" a fetid electro "sex jam" with stereo-panning moans and lines such as "Complete me, I'm here alone." There's a cliché about sex that "you lose yourself in another person," but the character twigs inhabits doesn't seem to have anything to lose.

All of this might sound weak, but there's a profound strength in twigs' naked confessionals. It takes a lot to feel comfortable saying you're alone, especially when you're surrounded by people. Asking your partner to be better is difficult no matter what the relationship is. Though twigs sounds uncertain, it's clear from her latest effort that she knows exactly what she wants. 

In Revue- 'Wildheart' (Miguel)

It's not readily apparent what the most impressive thing is about Miguel's new LP Wildheart. The fact that he produced most of this fuzzy, yet smooth, blunt but sultry affair is laudable. It's not a common occurrence with R&B artists. So you almost want to award bonus points to Miguel for how cinematic he makes the guitar crunch sound in opener "A Beautiful Exit." Each chord recounts those pivotal scenes when a hero goes rushing headlong into the abyss. That's not Miguel's voice. It's distant and feathery, floating behind the static-painted wall. An ideal foil to such immediate heaviness.

Praise too is due to his sense of pacing. He's wise enough to place the sobering "What's Normal Anyway?" and "Hollywood Dreams" right next to each other. The former essentially focuses on the struggles of an African-American/Mexican-American man, who listens to John Lennon and Biggie, to find his peer group. "Too proper for the black kids, too black for the Mexicans, too square to be a hood n****, what's normal anyway?" he painfully wonders aloud while strumming his guitar. In the latter we see the same man, still struggling, also forced to find a career in the cutthroat labyrinth of Los Angeles. Sex is a welcome salve, and a joyful distraction as we learn throughout the album, though it's tinged with regret in the Tame Impala meets Ginuwine number.

With that expert pacing we experience the carefree highs of love making in the thinly veiled "Waves," which brings to mind disco-era Marvin Gaye and has nothing to do with riding a surfboard. Then we crash a few songs later as Miguel wails over the sparse ripples and shaky percussion of "Leaves." Romance is a strange thing because the amount of time spent in it doesn't really matter. One night can matter as much as one decade depending on a person's perspective. So we have no idea how long Miguel and his female companion were around each other, there's only visceral singing to go off of.

Which is another element of Wildheart that should get a standing O, Miguel's singing. He doesn't quite have the piercing, Jacksonian falsetto of The Weeknd or Frank Ocean's supreme control, where he can cut off lines in an instant. His voice is often so affective because it drifts. A simple line like "I don't care," stands out in "...GoingtoHell." You're hanging with the thought to see where it goes and then it's gone in a haze of bass thumps and synth squiggles. There's no resolution, no pay off. "Coffee," the first single and closest comparison to the heavenly "Adore," continually promises ecstasy while focusing on the everyday. His voice is soft enough you'd think he's recording from under a bedsheet. And he never really throws it off. He threatens to once or twice with a wail but he goes right back to "tongue kissing and pillow talk." No need to ruin a good morning for the sake of a good ending. 

Others will give Miguel credit for his sly social consciousness. "We're gonna die young," might simply be a piecing of an overarching narrative about being in love and under 30, it could be about being black and getting killed before 30. The aforementioned "What's Normal Anyway?" is an ideal fit for a year where we can have intellectual discussions about race and gender identity. 

I'm not entirely sure how interested Miguel is in anything political though. Wildheart is an album about love. About the way it can make your heart race, your blood boil, your knees weak and your eyes water. We see how beautiful and ugly it can all be. Sex is shown in focus so we can see that femininity and masculinity don't matter, enjoyment does. And those two things are intertwined but not always. Love doesn't have to be eternal, impermanence is okay. If we applaud Miguel for doing anything, we should applaud him for teaching us that.

"Don't Mess Me Around"- Clare Maguire

There isn't an inch of room open for debating who is in control on UK singer Clare Maguire's hurricane-sized single "Don't Mess Me Around." From the opening gut-shot handclaps and rumbling bass right through to the final few wails, it's obvious that Maguire "owns" everything around her. The pitiable boyfriend with the wayward eye. The overly jealous girl giving the death stare from the corner of the bar. Anyone who dare throw shade at her girls. They're all under her domain, the simple screams of "don't mess me around" is all it takes for Maguire to assert her dominance. 

Since she's a female Brit with a penchant for soulful reclamations of WOMANHOOD, the comparisons to Adele are going to come fast and furious, but they're unwarranted. Maguire's far more ferocious than Adele. The latter would never attempt a line like "you have been erased, that's how easy you are to replace," and she certainly wouldn't scream it. I can't remember the last time a soul/R&B track had me reaching to turn the volume down, but "Don't Mess Me Around" does. Earsplitting, domineering, grooving, this song is all of those things and so much more. Run from it if you want, you won't get far.

In Revue: 'Wild' (Miguel)

While it seems ostentatious that kaleidoscopic crooner Miguel would surprise release a new EP of progressively druggy R&B less than a week after D’Angelo damn near broke the music web with his masterful sneak attack Black Messiah, it makes sense in the right frame.

Miguel has a penchant for psych-soul/funk/R&B "ballads" that transmute at least three times before his voice floats away from them. If D'Angelo didn't outright invent the style on his 2000 record Voodoo, he helped popularize it. A song like "Playa Playa" can shift from narcotized tribal chanting to muted horns and not bat an eye. Without D'Angelo's work on that sophomore LP, we arguably don't get: the Weeknd, Frank Ocean, Solange or Miguel. Miguel's decision then has nothing to do with brazenness; it’s a tip of the cap to a sonic forefather.

Even if this new untitled EP (Wild to make it easier) was positioned as a contender to D'Angelo's hazy throne it would still rightly be viewed as a success. Miguel really rose to prominence with the Art Dealer Chic EPs in 2012 and the format suits him incredibly well. Each plea for a late night rendezvous is more desperate; every line of pillow talk tenderer because you know there's a finite amount of time. The Sun will be coming up soon and then it'll all be over.

But that's one facet of Miguel's inimitable style. He can do braggadocio with the best of his R&B peers and Wild's opening track "nwa" allows him to fully indulge. "She just wanna ride with an NWA," he hums over closely-mic'd drums, G-Funk synth wobbles and dust settling guitars. It's the sort of the line that's infinitely cooler because of how calm Miguel sounds delivering it. He's not pretending, he's a legit "NWA," and if you don't believe him you can ask legendary Philadelphia everyman Kurupt. The Dogg Pound member goes the Miguel route, barely rising above a gruff whisper, but he doesn't have the same effortlessness. He's the dude memorizing pickup lines while Miguel's breaking the ice with something he just thought up.

And if closer "coffee" is any indication, those lines clearly work. What starts as chat about "street-art and high-fashion," accompanied by blankets of static and murmuring bass, soon "devolves" into tongue kissing. Everything follows a natural path until Miguel and unnamed lover end with "coffee in the morning." "Coffee" has one of the cleverer hooks I've heard in 2014, if only because it finds a new way to portray a night of passion. It documents the kind of psychic connection that can form between two people who started off looking for the physical.

Miguel's true genius then is taking genre tropes and spinning them into audio gold. Like "Candles in the Sun" before it, "hollywooddreams" should sink under the weight of its own idealistic hokum, but it doesn't because of Miguel's commitment to the material. He's earnestly hoping for a "big break," trying to find a dream lost under surging guitars and twinkly synthesizers. There's no doubt he'll spot that break. With the artistic vision Miguel has, he could find anything.

"OICU" ft. Le1f- Kelela

"My body's so impatient now," indie R&B artist Kelela paradoxically sighs on new track "OICU." While being unable to bear sexual tension any longer is a common R&B trope, nothing about the L.A. singer's collaboration with NYC electro-rap hybrid Le1f and Kansas City producer P Morris suggests impatience. 

Kelela's voice climbs up Morris' walls of rewinding whooshes and moaning synthesizer like ivy. In his eyeballing opener, Le1f drawls compliments "I think you're hella rare" through thick layers of AutoTune. He wants to head out the front door, though his unhurried tone suggests he's comfortable waiting. The outside world is all about change; in an insular club time comes to a standstill. There's plenty of time to "tell me where you wanna go," as Kelela calmly demands with handclaps backing her. Fiery passion and embracing the heat of the moment is enjoyable, but "OICU" prefers the slow burn.

"Share It All"- Jessie Ware

I'm not sure if I've ever had to turn down the volume on a song that could be pegged as "seductive R&B" because the bass was too loud. Ideally, the bass should be softly exhaling. Synthesizers need to ebb and flow without overflowing. Drums (programmed or otherwise) that faintly tick are best. Any guitars in the mix fit when they have a brittle feeling. The seduction element hinges on silence.

On "Share It All," Jessie Ware's second offering from her upcoming sophomore release Tough Love, the U.K. electronic R&B artist checks off the last three while leaving the first conspicuously blank. "Share It All"'s synth moves at a glacial pace under Ware's breathy request "could you it all with me, and I'll share it all with you?" When she's navigating in a dark room with a destination in mind, drums are quietly chattering under piles of ripped off bed sheets. The song's fragile reverberated guitars conjure the xx and sure enough the London trio's guitarist Romy Madley Croft co-wrote the effort with Ware. Though previous collaborator Julio Bashmore produced "Share It All," it’s the xx's work that informs the track. The idea of cavernous bass in an alluring number wouldn't be possible without the xx's "Intro" as a template. In "Share It All," each boom isn't meant to shake you, but echo the jittery beat of a heart.

It's more than the music though that makes the xx one of Ware's closest analogues; it's her uncertain romantic insistence. "Share it all with me," she calmly demands before backing down to "if you want to." Ware's asking someone else "tell me what you want me to do;" following instead of leading. Not unlike Croft in "Angels," she knows exactly what love is, but doesn't quite know how to pursue it.




Jessie Ware's Twitter page teases August 3 as a release date for Tough Love's title track. No news yet when the album will appear on Island/Cherrytree.

"Rayman"- The Range

Adjectives like "bright" or "warm" and "calm" are all I can think to use when describing James Hinton's, aka the Range, contribution to Dropping Gems' fourth Gem Drops compilation. The Providence, R.I. native's track "Rayman" for the electronic label brings to mind a pleasantly sunny afternoon. "Rayman" is drum and bass for someone who wants to lounge in the shade of an oak tree on a July day or enjoy dubstep without breaking a sweat. The sedate pace of the synthesizer part is relaxing, bordering on hypnotic. Focusing on it for too long, I found myself nodding off at the keyboard while listening to the song. The hiccupping vocal samples Hinton incorporates never push into "frenzied" territory; they laugh without being overbearing. Even the requisite electro-bass rumbles the Range carefully builds toward aren't as dark as something artists like Lunice would do. "Rayman"'s the type of light, unhurried music that's perfect for the game it’s presumably named for. Sure you could rush straight to the finish, but why not leisurely spin over to a cloud instead?

Listen to "Rayman" now through Spin. Gem Drops Four arrives July 29 on Bandcamp and you can find the tracklist below:

Gem Drops Four:
1. "Shadow"- DJAO
2. "Actions"- Anenon
3. "Range Four Harry"- Gouda Hoop 
4. "Falling"- Vandetta
5. "Give Me Something"- Ghost Feet
6. "Rayman"- The Range
7. "Jenny @ Da Pie Shop"- Rap Class
8. "We Do"- Shawn Don
9. "Wmn Too"- Philip Grass
10. "Funes"- M. Constant
11. "Souler"- Bone Rock
12. "Creepin"- Swarvy 
13. "Sunder"- Devonwho
14. "Frownin (Robot Edit)"- Free the Robots
15. "Mist"- Pixelord
16. "Last Drop"- Natasha Kmeto
17. "Krycek"- Braxton/Palmer
18. "Disappear Here"- Qloq
19. "Duke 6"- Time Wharp
20. "Layer Rush"- Marley Carroll
21. "If I Could"- Big Sigh