This ain’t your dad’s Sufjan

This might be the collaboration of Son Lux, rapper Serengeti, and perpetual cutie Sufjan Stevens, but the biggest mistake a potential listener could make going in is expecting this to fit neatly into the catalog of any of its constituent parts, and while they don‰’t quite stick the landing, the acrobatics they attempt are at the very least mostly interesting. The arrangements stick mostly to sparse, stuttery electronics with a vaguely hip hop flavor, hardly the stuff of Stevens‰’ typical lush organic instrumentation. It can be comfortably described, at times, as ambient, and hearing rapping over these instrumentals is a neat experiment, sort of like the polar opposite of Death Grips. For the majority of these tracks, Sufjans vocal contributions either comprise the entirety of the vocals of a song, or are relegated to a chorus hook, and it‰’s probably for the best, as Serengeti proves himself a more than capable, if sometimes a bit dull, abstract rapper. It‰’s a calming listen on the whole, and there are handful of tracks here that this certainly does not work in the favor of, dragging on and on, eventually making you forget you‰’re even listening to something. Still, if you consider yourself a fan of any of Serengeti‰’s members, it‰’s an interesting enough listen just to see what they can get themselves up to.

RIYL: Broken Bells, Doomtree, Sufjan Stevens
Recommended Tracks: 1, 3, 4, 8