My first draft of this was real angry, mostly because I wasn't sure how to write a shrug. Far be it from me to knock Jay-Z's cynicism; the guy's got an otherworldly ability to suss out what's commercially viable in rap at any given moment (when you refuse to release your music on streaming services other than your own free trial factory, you have to pander to the people that actually buy CDs). There's just no particularly compelling reason to listen to this.

Wallace Stegner’s All the Little Live Things would have you believe that people move to California solely because they’re paid as hell and need to distance themselves - spatially, and grip-on-reality-wise - from the human cost of their good fortune. He’s correct. San Francisco and LA, the two major destinations, offer opposite approaches: in the former, the outside world is an obsession, with no end of jackasses all too willing to reassure you that you’re making it a better place; the latter sprawls enough to be entirely self-contained, with vast expanses of natural beauty as a second line of defense.

A few strange things happened during my conversation with Laraaji. First, about halfway through (at the part where he's talking about Switzerland), he smoothly transitioned into clipping his toenails without ever breaking eye contact. Afterwards, in my car, he spent several minutes questioning me intently about the protective capabilities of some Magic: the Gathering cards that I had left in a cupholder.

Who was checking for this? We've all been to a Washed Out show at some point, in the front row tripping over ourselves to show that no, we were feeling it all around-est. However, I didn't expect the dude to age out of that with us - something about chillwave's unyielding summer iconography always made me think that the artists themselves were more in exile than on vacation. Sure, the timing of Mister Mellow's June release date and subsequent summer tour is far from coincidental, but the album finds Ernest Greene far from stagnant.

I'm not sure that I've ever understood what Laurel Halo is going for. That's quite alright; her three major releases occupy a totally distinct sonic world, and it'd be boring to have fully explored it the first time. Halo's work, for me, has a very specific role: when I'd like to listen to Laurel Halo, she's the obvious choice.

2017 Albums.