Album Review: Slauson Malone - A Quiet Farwell, 2016-2018
The fact that Slauson Malone, real name Jasper Marsalis, has made a name for himself making music diametrically opposed to that of his father, famed jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, is an act of cosmic irony too funny to ignore. Wynton, who famously loathes avant-garde forms of jazz and has referred to rap music as “a pipeline of filth” among other insults, must no doubt utterly despise his son’s work, which is about as unorthodox and experimental as hip hop can get. But most critics and music aficionados would likely agree that Jasper’s work is proficient, both as part of the collective Standing on the Corner and in this new solo incarnation, and its eccentric nature creates as close of a modern analogue to the innovative jazz of artists like John Coltrane and Miles Davis as one can get (incidentally, Davis is another artist Wynton despises).
The sound collage style present on A Quiet Farwell, 2016-2018 is, at its most basic, one that has been murkily present in the underground for decades but which occasionally bubbles to the surface of a less obscure work, most recently on Earl Sweatshirt's Some Rap Songs from 2018. Yet where that album's sound was uniform and unambitious compared to the sounds of Standing on the Corner (whose influence, along with that of J Dilla and Madlib, is annoyingly omnipresent), A Quiet Farwell is fresh and inspired, pulling from genres and sounds so varied and obscure that it would seem impossible to create anything resembling coherence. Admittedly, at first glance this album is quite spastic and disjointed; still, its succinct madness is oddly compelling, and with each subsequent listen its true beauty becomes all the more apparent.
Though this record is clearly meant to be listened to as a complete experience, even in such a short, turbulent project there are moments which stand out in terms of brilliance and idiosyncrasy. Ttrabul, built around a sample of the word ‘trouble’ remixed and stuttered in time with the orchestral production, strangely buries a guest verse from Medhane to the point where it is barely audible. King Sisyphus of the Atlantic starts as an erratic, industrial mess of soulful vocals and synthetic noise before suddenly cutting out, only to rebuild from literally nothing into an eloquent brass melody supporting a voice intoning “There’s nothing I can do about it”. Just when the track seems to have run out of tricks, the first melody is abruptly shoved back in as the base for what sounds like a relatively orthodox hip hop song, complete with 808 percussion and a smoothly delivered verse. Directly preceding it is the similarly funky WON’T BLEED ME: The Sequel, a catchy interlude projecting a depressing message in contrast with its slick guitar lines: “They bled my mama/They bled my papa/They bled my brother/They bled my sister”.
The clear highlight of the record is the four-part Smile series, distributed irregularly throughout the album and yet providing the most sprawling demonstration of Malone’s genius. Its theme first appears on Smile 2 in the form of a piano melody supported by strummed bass notes, providing a powerful backdrop for a nostalgic verse from guest rapper Maxo: “Smile at the past when I see it/Sometimes shit seem out of reach”. The line reappears on Smile 1, uttered by Standing on the Corner member Caleb Giles over a faster version of the previous instrumental, his words becoming increasingly disjointed to match the production slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller fragments until reforming as a grimy cymbal beat. Smile 4 and Smile 3 occur as the album nears its end, the former distorted and lethargic with an outro flipping the previous lyric on its head (“Can’t smile at the past when I see it/Still my past, they ain’t seen it”); the latter renders the line completely tepid, drained of all life and transformed from a sunny remembrance of youth into a dirge mourning all that time has stolen.
Some of the samples present here are fairly distinctive (most listeners will probably recognize the shout of "Turn me up!" also sampled on Waves from Kanye West's 2016 album The Life Of Pablo), but the sheer quantity of outside recordings present, as well as their creative usage, keeps things fresh and unpredictable for the entire album. Despite a few moments of genuinely repulsive noise typical of avant-garde projects, the album maintains an aura of alluring mystery, with some abnormalities (such as the interlude 180º Pole Shift Hypothesis) even adding to the experience.
Though this may be a contentious opinion among the many instant fans of A Quiet Farwell, 2016-2018, this is not an album that demonstrates its appeal well on first listen. But regardless of one’s appreciation of, or aversion to, such an abnormal style, the record’s vocal intricacies and creative production slowly reveal themselves as it becomes more and more familiar, the unpredictable shifts and off-kilter interludes coalescing into a coherent experience. Some may never appreciate such inaccessible music, and will be perfectly content to remain in the realm of what is safe and known; for those feeling a bit more daring, A Quiet Farwell is more than worth the time it takes to fully appreciate.
9/10
Favourite Tracks: Ttrabul, Smile #2, THE MESSAGE, Off Me! "The Wake" Pt. 1 & 2