Chronicle 2022: The Highlights #4
"These are the days, these are the only days". Back in the saddle!
Writing hasn’t come as easy as other times in the past. It’s been a fun challenge, reminding myself why all these albums, which I haven’t stopped hearing since I first heard them, was part of a fun and exciting process, in which I found new ways and reasons to love these projects. In the end, that ends up being one of the biggest rewards - though not as big a reward as being open about said reasons, and the ‘why’s and the ‘how’s. Though, there will always be a certain mystery as to that former part, and a lot of ignorance (on both our ends) on the latter. Nonetheless: country, rock, house, rap, reggaeton, and combinations of all of those and more! Dig in!
Caitlyn Smith - High (country pop)
When the world’s against you, maybe all you have to do is sing. Caitlyn Smith, a find in contemporary country that’s not particularly all that rare: a Nashville-based singer-songwriter who can find profitable work behind the scenes (Meghan Trainor and Miley Cyrus were her meal tickets), but who feels much more comfortable and ambitious in front of the microphone. Caitlyn’s abilities feel especially more amped up when she’s in front stage, because her vocal dexterity and capacity are massive: churning of the earth with a flower on her sleeve at all times. Caitlyn’s previous albums, in particular 2018’s Starfire (one of the best of that year), have veered into the country theatrics, with enough touches of soul and outright pop to keep the packaging refreshing, if only because her vocals stun that much they can’t neatly be fit into any broad category.
This album, High, is a disappointment and still one of the finest compilations of music (country and otherwise) that you’ll find all year. Not enough budget to make a whole album because her label’s too busy marketing Walker Hayes’ Applebee’s commercials, Caitlyn only got as much budget as 7 songs (with one romanticized intro as an opening track). To add insult to injury, the title track is a song she wrote for Miley Cyrus’ Plastic Hearts, one that’s turned into somewhat of a fan favorite for her. So we’re not entirely dealing with the freshest stuff out there. It’s a testament to how much you can rescue, amidst all the flaws and the moments of half-assing of just about everyone except Caitlyn, who always brings in her 100%.
For a likely point of comparison, Caitlyn’s version of “High” obliterates Miley’s in a matter of seconds. Set to a different, higher key, the expressivity of the melody rings out much stronger, and Caitlyn understands how to build a proper crescendo with the clashing of the chords. This version isn’t ugly or ragged, it’s poised yet very much angry, and abrupt where it needs to be. Caitlyn’s juxtaposition of the swinging melody in the verses, as she sways from her lower range to her falsetto (my favorite part is in the second verse, singing the word “eventually” like “evangely” - for her, this aching is religious), with the forceful chorus that she wastes no time galloping through, even if it’s the same runs over and over, brings up a more complicated palette of emotions. As she’s saying “goodbye”, growling through it, a miniature electric guitar pops up, knowing it can’t top her.
If anything, High serves as a rightful point of entry for Caitlyn, if you’re not sure you want the outpouring barricades of her more fleshed-out body of work. She builds up a swell groove in “Good as Us”, with enough sensuality and conservative romanticism bordering on soul, but never steering towards the nitpicking of moments with her lover that feel universal. On a similar note, “Nothing Against You” serves as a fantastic reminder of her uncanny way of combining yearning with sexual exasperation, as one feeling slowly melts into the next one, without getting crass; for her, there’ll always be a sense of sophistication. The guitars going back and forth at the end of the bridge are the ones that will decide the fate of these lovers.
You’ll also find some clichés, as in any of her projects, but not any that she can’t sell to some degree or another. “Maybe In Another Life”, besides having an empty bridge where nothing happens, is one of her classic love burnouts of missed opportunities; lyrically lacking (“Everything was real / From the way you kissed me to… the way you made me feel” gee, that paints a picture), melodically stunning. Caitlyn commands the string section through every song, and creaks her way through some tougher moments in the melody - the glimpse of euphoria of “Maybe I could be your girl!”, followed by the small reluctance of “And we don’t ever say goodbye…”, before settling with the defeat of the title line. If you’re going for something lighter, “Dreamin’s Free” more than satisfies: an ode to wishing and hoping, while still acknowledging the work you have to do to get there. Two lovers who’ll be each other’s muses while still dreaming of making it, even if the backing chord progression tries to put their feet back in the ground, doesn’t matter if it fails. There’s a wonderful sense of comradery no matter what.
The song that makes all of this worth it, though, is “Downtown Baby”. Set to be the next single, it should be ruling every radio station. Try to ignore some dated production arrangements, and you’ll find a jewel of the cultural urge to move past the effects of quarantine. At face value, it’s about a couple going downtown and enjoying the sights and being themselves. But as the song unwinds, the sentiment of sheer discovery and wonder to be found in any other street is what’s driving them together - she calls it “adolescent appetites”, but it’s more than that. You feel it in Caitlyn’s brainstorming of a pre-chorus (“I need a change of scenery!”), that develops into a humbly galloping chorus, sweeping before anyone (even they) realize. Maracas, bar pianos, blues guitars, it’s as if they were taking everything in the city and incorporated them into the song. And behind them, a crystal-clear organ, shading the fluorescent lights into a breathtaking orange. Caitlyn’s quasi adlib, “Only you can take me HIGHER! Oh-woo-hoo!”, is one of the most powerful moments in music of the year, and that ‘you’ could be her lover, or downtown, or anything depending on the moment, and the angles of the lights. I’ve played this song just about every time I went out this year; it feels as though, not only is something important around the corner, but maybe it’s already there.
Buenos Vampiros - DESTRUYA! (gothic rock)
This is as good an outing you’ll find in rock music this year as you will most Pitchfork-acclaimed bands. Buenos Vampiros, be it by a combination of a limiting formula, a held-together budget, and a lot of time on the road, don’t really take any time to mess around. This second album of theirs is 8 songs long, lasts 22 minutes (only 1 song and 5 minutes short of their debut), and it’s not only immensely rewarding on following listens, it’s also a very friendly and open album regarding its intentions and philosophy.
The band’s take on ‘gothic rock’ is more of a well-rounded version of the big post-punk bands of the 80s: Gallup-like bass, rollicking guitars assimilating Joy Division (as well as the early dream pop stages, in the sense that they add to a certain lost atmosphere that’s not too polished or clean), a good chunk of Siouxsie (and 90s riot grrrl ethos) in the vocals. That being said, the mixing is absolutely beautiful, pristine stuff. The sound is fantastic, through and through: no misses in the mix, everything sounds full and charged up, the spotlight is taken up by multiple players roughly at the same time. There’s hardly a miss here, one that does give in to the friendliness of the sound that wasn’t that present in the past - for some, a loss; but considering we’re dealing with a specific by-gone era, Estanislao Lopez’s production and mixing job captures that romantic feeling of gripping onto a thought.
But Buenos Vampiros themselves also need to be taken to task for being so succinct and so fresh with their songwriting and performing. The trick here is they’re not great songwriters. Most songs here are quite short, with very clear patterns and repeated stanzas, and they cycle back through their ideas a lot, even for such a short project. But they perform them by marching through: they bust their riffs, they yell their melodies, and when the time comes to start the song all over, they do it harder. The thought here is to keep fucking going. This is music for piercing, open eyes that don’t want to be shut off. It resists the nighttime by diving in further.
Stand out moments/songs? You can go for the spooky B-52’s dynamic of male-female vocals on “Verano”, one that leads to missing moments of fear, a sort of ultimate helplessness, hoping it’s all a dream. There’s the pop smash “El Perro”, with some fantastic drum sizzle, and the most vicious vocals of them all, with a real great stop-and-go melody in the verses that dive into a doubtful chorus… so when it all goes back to zero, the story gets deeper. The colliding frustration of “Me Paralicè”, with the campiest vocals on the record, and a display of odd companionship that indicates something stranger is at the door. Closer “Todo El Mal” has some great interplay between a frightened lead guitar and a flirty bass, in a “let’s see who wins this one out” fashion. That’s half the tracklist already, but the melodrama of “Desesperada” and especially “No Te Metas” indicate a fierce way of living that’s remarked by the pitch-red singing. I hope their next album is 16 minutes long, just for fun: let’s distill the youth.
Drake - Honestly, Nevermind (house)
I suggest you skip the 40-second intro; it leads nowhere, and doesn’t segue into anything. Dive right into “Falling Back”’s first sound: a cut Drake vocal take (“-heugh-”) on top of a beat that had begun its rotation way before you even pressed play. Honestly, Nevermind just starts, and then keeps on going at its, admittedly, monotone, unpressed speed. The ‘house’ music it’s deriving from is the most shameless of them all when it comes to thinking of the dance floor as a waiting room, where no excitement could flourish, no love could be lost or found, and no thrill of enlightenment could surpass the fleeting feeling of simply being there. Drake and his producers are very aware of that, and so they realize: a wasteland; a ripe place for tragedy.
Tragedy, in the sense that Drake, the buff, hot stud who can’t find a personality that doesn’t involve ramping paranoia, mistrust and emotional stagnation, finds his disintegration, only to be reborn at the hands of the industry machinery. The former part, however, is much more important and widely more interesting than the latter. One of the biggest superstars on earth collapses under the fate of the worst relationships he could find, and just about every time, it’s his fault and no one else’s. From the title alone, Honestly, Nevermind brings to the forefront something we all very much knew about Drake, but here it’s being put to his extreme: being so far at the top, Drake can’t experience joy in anything. His music is joyless, passionate but devoid of glee or fascination, incurious by design. His thing is matching up dedication with total apathy. He proposes questions to his many lovers on this album, and they all go unanswered, because he couldn’t care for an actual answer; and so, the spare house instruments wash him away.
Not that you can’t find joy in Drake’s music. Part of the fun, for the listener at least, is to spot the wide array of moments where Drake brings in his petty, bored self, and we find ourselves allured by how easy it would be to give in to that mindset in our own lives… until we realize how ridiculous (let alone privileged) that would be. From that ridiculousness, come many moments of fragility on our end: what makes us tick, what makes us empathize, what makes us drive our eyes away.
A neat example: “A Keeper”. A gorgeous instrumental: deep, soothing pianos strutting through crushing lows and a small vocal section in the background; we’re floating in a curious mix of uncertainty, objects dissipating as we touch them. Drake, at his stupidest: crooning he “found a new muse / That’s bad news for you”, setting us up for a quick and unpleasant break-up track. Immediately afterwards, he falls to pieces: he repeats “Why would I keep you around?” with the same inflection, more tired as he goes on, until he settles with “Why would I keep…”. He got to the halfway point, and now he’s indifferent to her, his, or our reaction. So brought down by his own stature, he stays with the winter affections of cold ambiguity. As he nearly finds speed, the instrumental ramps up for the same conclusion. This isn’t cyclical, this is a one-way road to nothing. The dance floor exit is nowhere to be found.
It’s like that for the whole album. Arriving at conclusions, then dipping once it’s time to face the consequences, but the road is narrow. Drake just can’t seem to find relief in anything he does. The one line on the album that references both sex and sexual pleasure is on “Sticky”: “If I'm with two of 'em, then it's a threesome / If she alone, you know she a freak one / If it's an escort, it's a police one” - cheeky, sure, but rather humorless. Drake’s persona is one that’s completely tied up to his worst resources, one that can’t celebrate or think about his success, and so the beats go on. A highlight of the album, “Massive”, is a dance jam with many outright instrumental sections, and no one cares; the pianos and tinkering alarms ringing consistently imply this could last for as long as they want, with Drake drifting in and out.
For a good chunk of the album, Drake will vocally lean into offbeat ramblings that don’t particularly rhyme or carry a melody, and that’s one of my personal kinds of Drake (“Jaded” is one of his most underrated tunes). So, when his musings take him into unwanted places, you can feel a carelessness, even recklessness, that feels more pulsing. Think the second half of “Texts Go Green”; his sensual poise is there (he can still hit really effective low notes), but the sad synthesized strings play indifferent to how he feels. But when he hangs onto a melody, he squeezes it to the point of disgust. Taping vocal samples from Marsha Ambrosius for “Flight’s Booked” for accentuation while he discusses “sunsets in California” makes him realize how far he is from said sunsets, like there’s nothing left to chase (“It’s been forever…”). Similarly, the second half of “Falling Back”, once he goes up into his falsetto and doesn’t bring himself down, consists mainly of him repeating “Falling back on me”, never the same way twice, and the numbness of his actions portrays that fading away of nothing going where it’s supposed to go, all in a haze of smoke.
Once this album enters its final stages, the final grasping moments of a life contained in sappy house beats whimpers its final moments, hoping to find some fleeting beauty. “Down Hill” feels like the morning after something transcendental broke once and for all, with the hazy percussion and Beau Nox’s “We tried, tried, tried” post-chorus, holding onto air. “Tie That Binds” sees Drake speaking to a final ghost, a figure in the nighttime who he promises everything to, until he realizes that his version of everything is useless: “Maybe I'll take you to my family / Change your name / Oh, baby”, followed by a flamenco guitar solo; deflating beats that mean nothing. At last, Drake meets his latest ego death in “Liability”, with backwards trap percussion, a slowed down voice for the entirety of it, and while he was talking to a specific ghost earlier, now he’s turning his body inside out to see no redemption from anything he’s done. It’s as pathetic and laughable as he sounds the entire album: deflecting blame at every turn, and then someone turns the lights on.
The album proper ends with #1 hit “Jimmy Cooks” featuring 21 Savage, a full-on trap loosie thrown in by the label to get a safe hit in case no one cared for anything else here. Cowards, I say! Why should Drake get a sudden resurrection so suddenly? Who took him off the rings of hell to play the untouchable superstar again? Leave him be! His demons are our demons, and our demons matter and mean shit (positive and derogative). Drake doesn’t understand or learn anything new from this album, and neither do we. But we’re faced with the stark realization that escapism has turned into a pretty little aesthetic lie, and now we’re seeing its ugly conclusion, Dorian Gray-style. This club isn’t dark, it’s pitch black. This is where our indifference gets us.
Leikeli47 - Shape Up (pop rap)
There’s some kind of power to be found in anonymity, right? Total obscurity from the rest of the world, but you know you’re calling your own shots? Leikeli47, even keeping that artistic name when signed with Republic, shifts her voice throughout Shape Up not only with each song, but I’d say in between each verse, that the kind of song or moment you could get next veers towards a sort of mischievous free-for-all mentality. Blasting through with danceable hooks and a lot of attitude that carries her through even some of the dullest moments, this album isn’t particularly interested in taking that many breaks.
In that sense, the album may run a tad together at times, mostly due to a strict line of producers who very much have an idea of what to make of her voice, which does lead to certain moments of weariness of redundancy. But they’re minuscule, in the grand scheme of things. The vocal repetition of songs like “Chitty Bang” and “New Money” could be annoying, but Leikeli rides through weary kick-and-snare drum patterns with restlessness and a bunch of hooks - both refrains and one-liners. The chorus of “Secret Service” is mainly different vocal samples barely stitched together, different voices all joining a crowd, all after Leikeli does her “Steph, Steph, Steph Curry / Pullin’ up from thirthay” while the bass modulates frequencies just to throw everything off balance. And, if “Zoom” is too sonically spare, it’s helped up by Leikeli’s bratty accentuations on the verses, and the whispers on the chorus, taunting the silence.
A lot has been said about Leikeli’s homages to the ballroom scene in her music, and how Shape Up also takes a lot of pride in that section of queer history. It’s no surprise she struts through the parked up beats like “Carry Anne” (like a ringtone at a rave), or the smoke-and-mirrors loss of sense of “BITM” where Leikeli doesn’t skip a beat. Most notably, there’s runway professional Miss J. Alexander doing a spoken word cameo on “Jay Walk”, where he asserts the importance of owning the room, while Leikeli effectively follows his advice - the thumping tapped percussion is the threat finding an outsider source.
Last but not least, it’s important to remark how Leikeli maintains a romantic core that you can see through all the suffocating stares and cold demeanor. The slow cut “Hold My Hand” is too long and too abrupt for my tastes, and she can’t fully turn things around all in one go - it’s not well placed in the album for it to not feel abrupt. But “Free to Love” stands out as a piece of what she can do when she’s backed up against the wall. An old school sample feels like an over-and-done-with formula, but hearing the serenading title being sung over and over is jarring when Leikeli drops the truth bomb: “You had it in your damn house”. It’s rapped with equal parts respite, anger, disappointment and brokenness that it almost renders the rest of the song obsolete - but she turns the rest of the song into a blurred kiss-off that can’t entirely look away; her slurring of key words in the first verse, the aid of club vocals in the second verse (it’s best when there are witnesses), the chopped flow right before the final chorus. It’s painfully obliterating, but she knows she can’t escape that pain, so she might as well buff up.
It’s really tremendous the amount of subdued cool that Shape Up has. She describes meeting someone on “LL Cool J”, and years passing of them being together, and there’s rarely a change in her somewhat raspy, comforted voice. There’s recklessness here, but it’s one that’s very well orchestrated, and it’s all happening in a sonic space where there’s not a lot of room to wiggle around or move. So, every step needs to be precise and focused. It’s a microscopic view of the eternal ways of moving around with confidence that doesn’t veer into self-righteousness.
Kae Tempest - The Line Is a Curve (hip hop)
Kae treats this new collection of songs, possibly their weakest since their debut but it doesn’t matter since they’re one of the best artists of the new millennium, as a song cycle dealing with the incessant pressure of day-to-day lives. Their way of looking at the world is one that hasn’t changed, and it’s one to aspire to. Their brand of ‘hip hop’ is less openly rapping (although there’s more of that on this album) and closer to slam poetry; recitations, where the cadence of the words don’t always fall into an established ‘flow’, and everything is far looser. Don’t mistake that perceived ‘looseness’ for a lack of grip or tightness; Kae is a brilliant storyteller, one that makes their images come vivid once they’re spoken out loud, and holds such tenderness for their thoughts that, as accusatory as they are, they never leave Kae themself out of it. There’s never a sense of detachment, or irony, let alone self-deprecation: this is as much of an immersive healing feeling as you can get.
That said, The Line Is a Curve is, simultaneously, the best and worst entry point for Kae’s music. Worst, because it feels like their least ambitious body of work, the packaging is much lower-stakes than the rest of their output, and there’s also a higher plurality of voices around (5 features where Kae’s previous albums all had none). Best, precisely because of those lower stakes; there’s never a looming pressure to feel you may be missing something in the stories they tell, and you can very much comprehend their ways of looking at the world without jumping wholesale into a fully established built-in universe. It’s a matter of how fast you’d like to jump.
One way or another, the parade of words and turns of phrase on Kae’s lyricism is something consistently potent, and their voice - a thick, British accent not interested in displaying femininity or masculinity - holds a lot of keys. They revel in the love of language, and build words upon their meaning, or potential meaning. Their political framing is one where everyone is together in a unitary fight, and potential betterness is an aspiration to which you must put in the work. But that way of thinking never gets preachy; Kae’s right down in the dirt with the rest of us, still looking for compassion in other people, aiming to see the best in the ones around them (and maybe not being able to do so all the time). Kae can feel the despairing sense of numbness in the psychedelic “These Are the Days”, where the days can’t be felt anymore, and they struggle against it. A similar fear is found in “Water in the Rain”, where a lover’s touch simply can’t get them that same rush anymore, and the disconnect they feel is piercing (and Dan Carey’s production is immaculate: passing pianos and Assia’s angelic voice, like the ideal of what Kae would like to feel).
The sound is one to note, as well. Sticking with Dan Carey (a hit-or-miss producer for UK up-and-comers), he does his best work when he’s with Kae, and as a producer, he brings forward a particular kind of cheap-sounding electronic sheen to the album, one that wasn’t this present before. This isn’t outright glitch, or trip hop, it’s much more arcane: openly digital patterns, a la Jean Michel Jarré. The proposal is to think of how primitive the ideas Kae brings to the table are, and how they match with our increasingly electronic-relying landscape. “I Saw Light”, or “Move”, are examples of trains of thought that pass by brought down melodies, one chirpier than the other, but equally mutating and ultimately stagnant. “More Pressure” with Kevin Abstract (who’s by far the weak link of the album) seems to be a demo version of a dance song, so it makes sense it’s the one more openly about trying (and failing) to let go of modern life’s convolutions; Kae’s crescendo in their verse is subdued, but tying nonetheless.
The centerpiece here, “Salt Coast”, is an obvious one, and a clear highlight in Kae’s career. The sound is pristine, like one of an old lighthouse in a desert beach, and Kae’s entrance into the track is noticeable, as little mantras enter the track, and pushing synths create an uncertain melody, never reaching a conclusion. And Kae’s painting of England, personifying the entire country, into a character as complex and contradictory (from the “Michelin-starred” to the “fast food”) yet beautiful and worthy, is one of love for one’s nation that doesn’t get subsumed in romanticism - an achievement for someone as romantic as Kae (although their most well-known song is called “England Is Lost”, so there’s always that). And even beyond England itself, the characterization is a stark and potent one, enough to reach any individual. I’ve refrained from using lyrics to quote and accentuate points in this review (mostly because I wouldn’t know where to stop and they’d fill up entire paragraphs), but few lines since the pandemic captured the feeling of acknowledgement that something’s rotten quite like “Six hours into some TV show that tastes like the feeling of pizza / I know what you reach for / All dressed up with nowhere to go”. Doesn’t even taste like pizza - it tastes like the feeling of pizza. God!
But the one real standout is the ‘poppiest’ song Kae probably has ever done, “No Prizes”, featuring Lianne La Havas. I never cared for Lianne’s music, or voice; too airy and dull. Here, relegated to a gorgeous hook backed up by a subsumed instrumental, she ties multiple stories together in one of Kae’s many buildings of unfulfilled lives that reach different conclusions regarding their failures and successes. He’s chosen to settle, while still holding out hope; she’s tried to find different alternatives to make a living, while holding resentment at everyone around her; they’ve followed their passion and it got them nowhere, so now the best they can do is survive. Kae’s observations are sharp, with a real keen eye on the space this is all taking space in (from bars to busy streets), and one of their best traits is that they never judge the characters they’ve built. They’re all going to try to keep it going, because it’s all they know how to do; the time for questioning is gone.
It should be noted that, while there’s no open discussion about Kae’s coming out as a nonbinary folk, it’s not particularly needed; they communicate a particular kind of talking about their own identity through their speech and their attitude. It’s present that this is an album still speaking to those marginalized and those misunderstood, but Kae’s way of looking at the world is one that never tires of not boxing people in any category that’s not necessary; so why should gender be one of them? While the conceptual bearing of jumping from character to character to unite one single story like on their first two albums isn’t here, let alone the conceptual wholeness of The Book of Traps and Lessons (up there with the best albums of the 2010s), the persistent mood of struggle that never dives into decay remains; that’s the right combination.
Mora - MICRODOSIS (reggaeton)
This album starts like no other. In a year where reggaeton, both mainstream and underground, has been giving in more and more into electronic textures and rhythms, even if you’ve been aware of that development, there’s no warning or warmup for “badtrip :(“. It doesn’t feel too dawning at first, as a hip house beat trumps in with a low whirring synth (that may be a vocal sample), and Mora jumps in chiming about not being able to move on from a former relationship. Not exactly standard, but overall manageable. But the instrumental fills itself up seemingly with each compass; Mora’s voice becomes heavier and more layered, and his performance loses its typical cool; the lyrics feel inconclusive, like words weren’t enough. The last third of the song, after a loose verse from Mora that dives into the near incoherent, is entirely instrumental, and the keys need to fill up a lot of space, so they don’t let the voice go. What ensues is a battle of which instrument has more control, as Mora’s voice becomes multicolored, and flashes of orange and purple yellings are muffled. There’s a monster that’s been created, and eventually the song loses control of it. The house beat leaves, and what’s left is a scream of agony: a voice turned into a digital instrument, attempting to be symphonic. There’s a glitch that was always there; the song was malformed from the get go, and the despair that leads some to hunt and others to isolate in their rooms was going to pop up at some point. It’s as dire an opening as you can find this year.
Still, more than a semblance of this makes sense. Mora had been around since the late 2010s, but his unmistakable explosion was his extensive work as a writer and producer on Bad Bunny’s masterpiece, YHLQMDLG, where he even got a lead artist feature on “Una Vez” (a song I underrated for a long time). Once the spotlight was on him, he quickly revealed himself to be a terrific writer of hooks and flows, including many for Karol G, Jhay Cortez, Anuel AA, and continuing his extensive work with Bad Bunny. The thing with Mora is, he’s an excellent writer with a distinctive voice and tonality, but his voice was something that held him back for a real long time. His first album, Primer Día de Clases, was well-produced and had some good moments, but Mora felt clueless and childish, and you could tell the second anyone else sang a hook of his, it got instantly better.
What’s important to highlight, though, is that Mora as a mainstream reggaeton artist is, through and through, a child of the pandemic. His moment in the spotlight took place once everything was dim, and he developed his voice the more we started to get out of that place of uncertainty and doomed mindset. He could never live up to his potential during the worst times, and now that there seems to be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, now is where Mora feels truly ready to shed light on his demons, and also reap what he’s been sowing. Opening MICRODOSIS with “badtrip :(“ isn’t so much a flex (like there will be on this album), but reveling in being able to let out this unwanted sorrow that’d been there for so long, now in a public setting, in a crowded night, and how that exterior set can feel so isolating. The voice never fully filters through once the doubt has been set. In other words, this is about the lasting effects of trauma, as we settle back into what used to be our lives.
Unlike other reggaeton affairs from the past couple of years that have delved into loneliness and miserable heartbreak (Rauw Alejandro’s VICE VERSA, for one), MICRODOSIS doesn’t do that the entire time. Mora’s not a sad sack, and in the end he commits to staying focused on what he has and what he’s gained. The magic of this album is that it can carry heartbreaking moments of begging and aching, and also have trap bangers about how rich and influential Mora is, and not only is there no cognitive dissonance, it never feels like one aspect is fake compared to the other. Mora’s melancholic and rather lonely, but he’s also cocky and somewhat full of himself. Those sides of him even collide more than once! This may feel like an obvious point, but in an era where reggaeton artists go all the way to show their sensitive side in a way that makes their tougher moments feel somewhat insincere, Mora sounds confident the whole way through.
Most of the album is aided by producer Machael, who had never run an entire operation up until this point. He proves himself here to be not only reliable, but willing to play with genre barriers, and dislocating tones. Most of MICRODOSIS is played in a shitty street at 5 AM on a summer evening, that moment where the dark feels deeper and more subsumed, and then slowly the sun starts coming up. Mora’s still funny voice is altered through and through, shape shifting as the seasons go around in a single night.
The starting point, the potential ‘single’ (although it’s been eclipsed by other, better songs), is the other hip house track, “MEMORIAS” with Jhay Cortez, their third collab, and their best one. Jhay’s gothic voice is as commanding as always, and his sense of humor remains intact, but the production’s more urgent feel makes it so there’s something underneath him that’s kicking him around (check the pause on “pudor” for a real smack in the face). But Mora’s performance makes it so he stands up to his friend and collaborator; his stern main vocal contradicts itself with the yelling backing vocals, like keeping the uglier part aside. The production buries everything as well, with a chord progression and string arrangement similar to Calvin Harris’ “Outside” of all things, but you could barely notice since it seems to swallow itself up with every movement.
In a world where no one no longer believes(/ in) each other anymore, Mora’s pleading for sincerity from others makes it a hopeless task, but one that means it’s harder for him to lie to himself. Getting emotional puppy Sech for “TUS LÁGRIMAS” was a smart move, and one that wisely doesn’t leave anything resolved. The reggaeton beat feels plastic and empty, with worn out golden synths. As they both try to make a girl leave a lover that’s no good for her, they make they case that “I know you think of him, but that fucker doesn’t deserve your tears”. The obvious question is, then, what does deserve her tears? What’s the scale we’re working with? Sech wants a hookup with emotional meaning, but he gets drowned out by his own impatience; you can feel him getting agitated as his verse goes on. Mora sees it as more of a routine, but one that he knows won’t work for long. The song ends with an instrumental outro, with no final repeat of the chorus. They’ve made their point, now the stage is empty. Something is very much missing.
Other collabs in this vein look at different ways of making these reiterative points gain different perspectives are also found in the second half of the album. “TU AMIGO” brings in legend Zion, the calm, smooth counterpart in the duo Zion & Lennox (can’t even imagine how Lennox’s incessant despair would fit on this sound, a nuclear wasteland would be on its wake), and it’s processed tribute to old school reggaeton with its ragged synth strings. Zion keeps his heat inside his pants, but his efforts are just callbacks - the entire verse is directly lifted from one of his mid-2000s solo songs - and Mora picks up the slack with uncanny ease. More in touch with the sensitivity of Mora’s sound is the hit “LA INOCENTE”, with genius Feid. Desolate sounds, a scarred guitar and city lights titillating, serving as stage lights for two men’s failures wimping into the night. Feid can’t lose his cool, but his voice visibly shakes, and the emptiness of the sound makes him feel heavier than usual. Mora, on the other hand, has no inhibitions in ramping through everything he did for a lost love, and now he yells a string-red chorus, always with a cap on how far the filter can pass through. The limit has been reached, and the pavement is far too near.
Again, it needs to be stressed, this album is not just this. Props to Mora and his team for knowing how to properly pace MICRODOSIS in a way that every moment of intensity is matched with something, if not lighter, at least more ludic. To make the more emotional second half more enticing and approachable, there’s the excellent “QSY”, the best trap cut of the bunch. The bass creeps in like dark spots in closed eyes, and while the emptiness of the production is more noticeable, Mora’s reflection on power is phonetically excellent; I’d love to quote lyrics, but that’d mean translating, and something gets lost in how these lines are built in their own language (mega props to his phasing off of “Quieren ser yo, pero son fotocopia / El dueño de tu flow y también de tu novia” like it was nothing - translate it, then listen to it!). “LINDOR” matches synthwave keys with rap percussion, all to the point of Mora throwing in “like, 500 different flows, so they have plenty to choose from”, and so he does, willing to humiliate anyone. While the bars in “ROBERT DE NIRO” aren’t too enticing (it’s called that way because “the director of this movie is Robert De Niro” - he’s not a director), the second half, an elongated message from Kendo Kaponi, combines the imagery of failed escapism once you realize your demons will catch up to you, and having said demons be in the shape of Mora. An enlightened piece of wisdom!
The middle part of this album is where you’ll find the heart of Mora’s mind, in a way that combines all these traits of his in compact songs that still contain multitudes. After the failed attempts of “TUS LÁGRIMAS”, highlight “ESCALOFRÍOS” is one that doesn’t play around, and Mora’s dead set on having the final word: she’s either with him, or “that guy”. His performance varies between a cocky stride, a failed attempt at ownership of this girl, and mere hope that maybe he’ll get it right, because he may feel entitled, but he can’t lie to himself. The song sounds hurt, reluctant, with a sub-bass that doesn’t get a chance to develop and intermittent percussion; it’s waiting for some kind of sunrise, not knowing if it could rain. He evokes Maná’s “Labios Compartidos”, and just like if it was fate taunting him, Fher Olvera himself shows up, like a ghost or an echo, to sing that very song (one of Maná’s very best). Someone from afar is playing music, or even singing it. But they’re owned by something else.
But after so many men have passed through, the presence of women, sung about so carelessly on this album, is one that needs to come in. Elena Rose (also a huge behind-the-scenes writer) features on “PLAYA PRIVADA”, in a sort of rest from the sadness surrounding Mora, letting go with someone at least for one night. The sonic images are meant to be that of sex on the beach, but it’s quite sexless. The presence of each other’s body, for both of them, is what matters more than physical contact. As scared as this moment is, it’s the one that shows a potential way out of so many mindsets, despite its briefness. So, naturally, the gray area of the next song, “LEJOS DE TI”, erases the tenderness of the previous song. Again, with another woman backing Mora up, this time superstar Karol G, the intent is much more bitter. As a cold, slow ballad, Mora throws someone out the door, vicious and blunt with how little he’s feeling, but Karol’s always a couple of steps behind him, as if these were her words instead of his, and he was just repeating them to own them somehow, and failing. The song morphs into a rock outro, one that’s shut off and rotten; it’s not cathartic or victorious, it’s merely brief and quiet. The instruments have grasped the truth, and no one wants to discuss it any further.
The most telling song on this album is the one that’s not about Mora at all, one where he’s merely an observant, which is “ORO ROSADO”. Mora sees, from afar, a girl he used to be with, and now he’s with on occasion. She seems to have found herself somehow, but has changed drastically. She has more money, more freedom, and it’s something that Mora understands to some extent. She’s gotten what she wants, and she’s been around enough that she can make a name for herself, but there’s a certain emptiness (that he knows he can’t fill) that seems to creep up: trading pink gold (something imperfect but heartfelt) for mere diamonds. There’s never a judgemental reading of that, but there is a feeling of something lost, of going higher up on the social scale at the risk of losing a kind of humanity, or at least a certain connection. That kind of connection feels harder to find nowadays, so some people may assume, why search at all? Mora’s not one of them, but he can detect when that sentiment is there. “Sundays at the beach are all Jetsco / It fascinates me to wake up next to you”.
There is heartbreak, but there’s also a certain loss that happened after so much time alone that goes beyond heartbreak. Mora taps into a hollow climate that can’t get past the sentiment of anxiety and indifference. He’s going to be content with his achievements (like the amapiano-inspired “OJOS COLORAU” indicates), but he still wants more. No one can seem to be able to stop, and the loop of this album, how the ‘bad trip’ of the beginning can turn into something as casual as a song, seems to say that this is harsher and harder to parse through than what we thought. Here, we have a hero of the darkest, harshest times, having the opportunity to celebrate, and he chooses to see how that missing chain has been formed, and now we’re working overtime to make up for the missing pictures, the jealousy, the yearning, the wins, the losses, the forced resilience, the cold nights, the shit sunsets, the goddamn memes, the failed investments, the moments of fresh air, the confused wanderers, the conformity, the settling, the set. The voice can never truly, fully filter through.