From home demos to wowing the world with their first album Aromanticism, Moses Sumney has graced audiences with a new musical feast of twisted genre play by way of LP Græ.
Græ, released in two parts by label Jagjaguwar, is a delicious array of avante-garde defiance, showcasing Sumney’s powerful ability to carve out their own unique space in an industry that is so quick to tell artists who they need to be.
Although the project is 20 tracks long, no track feels like filler. Sumney uses each poignant moment to make their views clear. The album explodes with themes of individuality and the harm of binaries, provoking listeners to reflect on their own assumptions and the boxes they themselves may be stuck within.
Part one of Græ, released in February 2020, travels all over the musical spectrum. It dips its toes in disco and sultry jazz with “Neither/Nor”, places a Bon Iver-esque melody in an electronic soundscape on “Boxes”, and mixes avante-garde rhythm and blues throughout “Jill/Jack”. Sumney utilizes magical vocal effects and strange sound design to impart feelings of unrest that move to distrust, settling in calm, and finally culminating in explosions of self-awareness. The experimental musique concrete themes are truly what sets this first half of Græ apart from perhaps all other recent releases. Part two, released in May 2020, takes a softer and somber approach at these same thematic elements. Opening with “Two Dogs”, Sumney begins to dive into their personal relationship with their past self and who they’ve become singing about childhood pets and understanding how death may be the greatest unifier of all.
“Keeps Me Alive” adds a smooth and pop-jazz element to the tracklisting while songs like, “Me in 20 Years” solidify their prodigal falsetto and musical prowess. The release comes to a head on final tracks “Bless Me” and “Before You Go”.
“Bless Me” stands out as one of the stranger elements of part two, reminding audiences that although Sumney can deliver a soft and beautiful ballad, they will only rest at breaking through the world’s fine lines for a moment. Their voice soars as they sing, “ bless me / before you go / you’re goin’ nowhere with me”.
Moses Sumney is rewriting what it means to create as a 21st-century musician. Sumney has delivered an album that delicately destroys the traditional framework of what music is while supplying the tools necessary for reconstruction. Græ leaves rubble in its path but not without the glimmering promise of a better future, a future in which those boxes the world so greedily places us in are burned away.
Stream græ below via SoundCloud! To purchase Græ, click HERE.
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