MIKE’s been stepping out from the shadows in recent times. For years, he’s trafficked in a pale {photograph} sound, his wealthy baritone melting into beats that would crumble when you held them too lengthy. His gluey go with the flow incessantly obscures the wonderful thing about his lyrics, which will transfer from self-examination to nostalgia to empowerment inside a couple of seconds. However starting with 2022’s Watch out for the Monkey, MIKE began to pry the forums off the home windows, illuminating the darker corners of his paintings. Religion is a Rock, a contemplative collaboration with Wiki and the Alchemist, dropped lower than a 12 months later, and shone with the readability of a vibrant wintry weather’s morning. 3 weeks after that, MIKE launched Burning Need, a meticulously crafted opus that signaled MIKE had absolutely entered his charged-up generation. Now, proceeding his spectacular run, he groups up with Brooklyn manufacturer Tony Seltzer for Pinball, a deliriously a laugh file of low-stakes raps and bubbly beats. It’s probably the most lively challenge MIKE’s ever made, an sudden however welcome vibe exchange.
MIKE and Tony Seltzer have labored in combination sooner than, however now not like this. Seltzer produced two songs on MIKE’s 2017 breakout, Would possibly God Bless Your Hustle. His paintings on that album used to be deeply kick back: “STANDOUT” married mechanical drums to atmospheric pads, a nod to the bygone cloud rap sound, and “Paul” used to be glistening chimes and screwed-down increase bap, slightly recognizable as a Tony Seltzer beat. The 2 stayed in contact through the years and reconnected whilst MIKE assembled Burning Need. He’d wrap up a track for Need at his rental, then head to Seltzer’s studio to transparent his head. Seltzer would play no matter beats he’d made that week and MIKE would prevent him when he heard one thing that caught. The 2 made “R&B” extra as a a laugh workout than the rest, however the paintings felt so easy they made up our minds to stay going.
On Pinball, Seltzer’s in best shape, offering MIKE with cartoonish lure beats, candy-colored drill, and quiet hurricane snap song. His drums soar round themselves with a raised-eyebrows power, as though they’re buddies who didn’t be expecting to look each and every different display up on the similar celebration. They appear to scatter as they hit, leaving wide-open areas for rappers and samples alike to ooze into. The hardly-there percussion on “2k24 Excursion” provides the orchestral loop abundant respiring room, the occasional 808 downbeats offering a hypnotic propulsive really feel. On “Deadly Weapon,” Seltzer’s sporadic hi-hats and rimshots flip chintzy MIDI tools right into a pastel swirl of Delta 8 psychedelia, and the ’80s synth pads of “Skurrr” drape over deep bass like satin sheets on a marble statue. The wild bounce between sounds isn’t ever jarring, although. The longer you concentrate, the extra lush and alluring it turns into.
