Dissatisfaction seems like the natural byproduct of identification

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...

#10 : grae - Moses Sumney

Where Moses Sumney’s debut, Aromanticism, was a forlorn testimony to vulnerability, Græ brings in the whole mess of living itself: from the playful oppositions of its track titles – Jill/Jack, Neither/Nor – to Sumney’s genre-splicing between R&B, folk, jazz and ambient electronics, Græ inhabits his swaying moods and transmutes his wranglings with identity into music without losing its sense of precarity. Like Marvin Gaye, another great purveyor of intimacy, Sumney shores up the solipsism of standout ballads Me in 20 Years and Bless Me with the whispers of multitracked harmonies constructed solely from his voice. It doesn’t feel egocentric, but proof of a messy and complicated psychological exploration.

Yet another lower case album!  I'd never heard of him, so had no particular expectations and the description above didn't help.  And having listened to it, I can definitely say "Hmmm".  There are moments I enjoyed, but I fear one man's genre-splicing is another man's spaghetti-mess - there felt to be a little too much paint thrown at the canvas here for my liking.  He's got an impressive voice - not one which I would describe as being entirely to my liking but there are some very nice harmonies in places.  However, after a good run of listenable albums, I struggled to imagine too many people putting this one on the old stereo - it feels like more of a "critic's choice" album to me (and the critics do indeed love it).

All of which has resulted in a change to the format - since we've hit the top 10, it feels unfair to give these albums only one listen before passing judgement on them, so I gave it a day and listened to it again.  I even went with headphones this time to fully immerse myself in the soundscape - and the result was the same.  Some bits of it reminded me of Laurie Anderson's "Superman" - which has always felt to me to be more "art" than music (despite the fact that it somehow got to #2 in the UK chart).

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the man or the album, although it does take pains to point out that it reached number 44 in the Portuguese album charts - which suggests it hasn't had a great deal of commercial success anywhere else.  Customers also listened to KeiyaA which we've already met on this list (here) and from what I remember there are distinct similarities, although I think KeiyaA probably shades it because there's more variation in tempo on that.  Overall, an impressive piece of work, but one to be (at best) admired rather than enjoyed in my opinion - and there are plenty of people that wouldn't even admire it.

And in honour of hitting the top 10, I'm also moving to one album a day - with Xmas day off, that means I'll get to #1 on New Years Eve which seems kinda appropriate

#12/11 - Some fine female voices
#9 - Much better than I was expecting