Weekly Music Roundup: Oneohtrix Point Never, Marcus Miller, and Kanye

Week of June 4: Yes, there is new Kanye West. But other stuff happened too. Oneohtrix Point Never dropped a new weird pop record; plus new music from bassist Marcus Miller, and electropop band The 1975.

From The Big Expanse of the US West, A Little Album by Kanye West

Well, you gotta hand it to Kanye West – he sucked all the air out of the music world again this past week, unveiling his new EP-masquerading-as-an-album called Ye at a star-filled ranch in Wyoming. It feels small in size, but more surprisingly, it feels small musically as well. None of the seven songs look to be crashing anyone’s Top Ten Kanye Songs playlist. Where it does not stint is in scope: West takes on his recent disclosure of his bi-polar diagnosis, the #MeToo movement and its snaring of hip hop mogul Russel Simmons, his own views about women (which this album suggests is evolving from Paleolithic to parental), and his erratic public behavior. One song, “Ye Vs. The People,” features the rapper T.I. chiding West for his support of Trump at the apparent expense of the African-American community, and even though West gets to respond, his opponent’s jibes are pretty strong and land hard. It all points to West’s epic sense of self-regard, which works well when it’s one of the spices in his recipes but at times on Ye threatens to become the overwhelming flavor. The song “No Mistakes” might be the one that best balances West’s undeniable production skills and taste in sampling with his need to tell us his story. “It’s been a shaky ass year,” he admits, only to go on to proclaim how he doesn’t “take advice from anyone less successful than me.” Meanwhile, the chorus samples the gospel legend Edwin Hawkins, and Slick Rick’s repeated “believe it or not” samples slyly suggest that we question everything West says. 

The 1975 Return, Only A Little Older But Apparently Much Wiser

The British electropop band called The 1975 released their debut LP in 2013, but really hit their stride here in the States with 2016’s album I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It. Now they’ve announced that their followup, called A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, will be out in October, and have released a single called “Give Yourself A Try.” Lead singer Matt Healy, who has recently revealed that he went through a period of rehab for drug addiction, adopts the role of an older man (he’s all of 29) dispensing the hard-won wisdom of his years (again, all 29 of them). One thing about The 1975 has been a sense of ironic self-awareness in their work – think of the video for their early hit “Girls,” for example, which starts with Healy complaining that the video looks like a typical pop band video (“we’re not a pop band”), and then pulls out every cliché in the book as the production unfolds. In this song, Healy details things like finding a grey hair “and like context in a modern debate I just took it out,” and hilariously refers to himself as “a millennial that baby boomers like.” 

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Latest “Hamildrop” Features The Regrettes

As we’ve mentioned here before, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, has been doing a monthly series of audio or video releases of Hamilton-related content, and this month’s Hamildrop, as the series is known, is an actual cover of one of the hit musical’s songs. “Helpless” has a 90s R&B groove in the original version, but the LA-based band The Regrettes have other things in mind – 60s girl group harmonies, for one, and the classic propulsive sound of garage-rock. Their version of “Helpless” has a great summery sound – perfect for this month’s Hamildrop. 

Oneohtrix Point Never Drops Long Awaited LP

 Composer and visual artist Daniel Lopatin finally released his album Age Of on Friday – shortly after presenting the songs in three sold-out performances of his interdisciplinary extravaganza Myriad at the Park Avenue Armory. Clearly Lopatin is not hobbled by a lack of ambition, andAge Of has been eagerly awaited since Lopatin’s earlier release of a video for the album track “Black Snow,” which he directed and which Pitchfork called (pretty accurately) “a head-spinning, cyborg nightmare.” The album turns out to be at once the darkest but also the most songful album that Lopatin has made under the Oneohtrix Point Never banner. Harpsichords share space with heavily processed vocals; some tracks are short enough to almost function like the skits in an old hip-hop record. There’s an impressive amount of sonic territory being mapped, and a good portion of it happens in the song called “The Station.” Its repeating bass line underpins a steadily building array of synthesizers, what sounds like a fuzzed-out guitar, harp samples, and auto-tuned vocals where you hear the auto-tune more than the vocals. An instrumental coda suggests a meeting of electronic music and Philip Glass-style minimalism, with a nod to alternative tunings. Not bad for a 4-minute “song.”

Marcus Miller’s Jazzy Take On Trap Music

Bassist Marcus Miller is part of the generation of jazz musicians who draw freely from the full range of black American music. Like pianist Robert Glasper or trumpeter Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah, Miller writes music that incorporates hip hop, funk, soul, and various types of R&B. His new album, called Laid Black, features guests like New Orleans’ Trombone Shorty, vocal group Take 6, and singer Selah Sue, who does a surprising version of “Que Sera Sera.” But it begins with a song called “Trip Trap.” The title refers to the spare Southern hip hop style known as trap, and it starts with the genre’s trademark stuttering hi-hat cymbal and Miller’s funky, almost speech-like bassline. But as the song goes on the whole band gets into the act, with the horns leading the way and framing a number of short but virtuosic bass interjections.