You may simply learn Regular as I Am, from John Glacier’s debut album, as a mission assertion. “I’m sticking to the plan, not the sport,” the rapper gives. “Suppose I’m loopy, ’trigger you’re all the identical.” In a style characterised by flash, Glacier cuts a novel determine, her USP a form of wilful obfuscation. She doesn’t reveal her actual identify – the house the place it ought to be on her Instagram bio is as a substitute stuffed by the phrase “NO” – nor her age: she as soon as informed the Guardian she was “20,000” years outdated. She first attracted consideration with a SoundCloud web page, crammed with snippets of music she had given shrugging, prosaic titles: A Youngster Was Unhappy So I Made This in Entrance of Her to Make Her Giggle; Sounds From Friday Night. Stated snippets have lengthy been deleted, however a fragmentary, demo-like high quality has clung to her releases ever since: the 12 quick tracks on her 2022 mixtape Shiloh: Misplaced for Phrases performed out in a mass of muffled synth tones and distorted samples.
Multiple critic has in contrast the impact of her vocal type – occasional bursts of brisk lyricism separated by sections during which she incants the identical phrases again and again, as if in a stoned daze – to overhearing somebody’s scattered voice memos. On Like a Ribbon, even her most pugilistic traces – “I’m the most well liked within the sport”; “I don’t give a fuck, let the individuals speak”; “now they’re calling me a bitch – finest consider it” – are delivered in an oddly clean tone, as if she’s muttering them to herself, unaware that anybody’s listening. Elsewhere, her lyrics have a stream-of consciousness impact, a splurge of phrases written to attempt to work out how she feels – or maybe simply because she likes the way in which they sound collectively: “Like a satellite tv for pc at nighttime / Within the evening / Whereabouts within the clouds like a kite / Floating within the winds let the birds float by,” runs a attribute line on opener Satellites.
The album’s sound, in the meantime, ranges in type from booming electronics to shaky, lo-fi piano samples – the latter on the Sampha-featuring Ocean Steppin’ – however its cornerstone sound is an electrical guitar, artlessly performed, as if selecting by way of the sample that opens the album or the vaguely Pixies-like riff on Cash Exhibits for the primary time. It’s the form of idiosyncratic method round which cult followings are constructed, and one is duly constructing round Glacier: she’s now signed to Younger, house of the xx and FKA twigs; a succession of vogue designers have known as upon her companies as a mannequin. You possibly can see why: Like a Ribbon is totally enthralling.
Its half-hour are so filled with concepts, it’s fairly exhausting to absorb on one hear, and so rewards repeat performs. There are massive, nagging earworms: the echoing, glacial riff that runs by way of Feelings is vastly addictive, so is Nevasure’s lovely synth sample. The beats boast the affect not simply of hip-hop, however UK storage, grime and drum’n’bass, and invariably wrap round the remainder of the music in sudden methods, their accents by no means touchdown the place you routinely assume they are going to. They’re a part of a teeming mass of mysterious sounds: the glitching, incomprehensible voices that interrupt Satellites; the murky pool of slowed-down samples beneath Regular as I Am; the solitary distressing scream that instantly seems out of nowhere in direction of the top of Don’t Cowl Me. Heaven’s Despatched ends the album with a recording of a perplexing telephone dialog over a fragile acoustic guitar determine. As a conclusion it feels each enigmatic and untimely, that means your instant response is to play the entire thing once more.
In the midst of Nevasure – a track that, like a number of the album, offers with emotions of uncertainty – Glacier opens a verse with the phrases “Since I got here to Earth …” It matches: the contents of Like a Ribbon appear fairly alien to the rest that’s at the moment taking place in UK rap. If you happen to had been trying elsewhere for context, summary US hip-hop collective Surf Gang seem on Dancing within the Rain; you could possibly additionally file it someplace within the area of Mica Levi or the weirder moments on Earl Sweatshirt’s Sick! However finally, Like a Ribbon actually doesn’t sound very similar to the rest. As together with her lyrics and their offhand supply, it’s all genuinely intriguing: you could possibly spend an terrible lot of time attempting to unpick what’s taking place right here and by no means actually resolve it. However reaching conclusions doesn’t actually matter: it’s clearly an album in regards to the journey slightly than the vacation spot. John Glacier has constructed her personal peculiar, alluring world: getting misplaced in it’s a fully fascinating and engrossing expertise.
This week Alexis listened to
Divorce – Antarctica
The opening observe from Divorce’s forthcoming debut album: a pattering drum machine rhythm observe, wobbly lo-fi guitar, lovely vocal harmonies, a beautiful track.
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