I have always been a fan of Moses Sumney. When Aromanticism released in 2017, I was enamored by his voice and how large and beautiful the production was especially on the songs “Plastic” and “Quarrel”. With the album clocking in at a dense 35 minutes, it left me craving for more music. Following Aromanticism came to Make Out in My Car: Chameleon Suite, a remix EP of “Make Out in My Car” and Black in Deep Red, 2014 which features a protest chant entitled “Power?” and two fantastic songs.
When Moses released “Virile”, the debut single for græ, I was immediately sucked in by the grand production with harps, flutes, and a beautiful string arrangement in the background of the drums and Moses’ passionate vocal performance. The song is a commentary on how the public world wants men to be masculine in their sexual and physical attributes and how he rejects it. I knew this was going to be one of the best albums of this coming year. Exactly a month later, Moses released “Polly”, an emotional and lonely folk-influenced song about the relationship between a monogamous person and a polyamorous person where the monogamous person fears that they are just a throwaway to their lover and useless. This single came with a music video of Moses staring at his webcam on his computer and crying which just destroyed me even more on the first listen while also another example of him rejecting traditional norms of what makes someone masculine and showing fragility. Before the first part of the album dropped, Moses Sumney released “Me in 20 Years” which functions as a letter to his future self where he asks if he will still be alone and if so, will that ever be enough to satisfy himself? Finally, he released the soul-influenced “Cut Me” which can be summarized by the line “If there’s no pain, is there any progress?” which he sings in the second verse. The song, being one of my favorites on the album as well as the opener, talks about how the things in life that cut deep and hurt only help a person grow while the track builds with each verse with pianos, horns, strings, and the rock band Adult Jazz.
The first disc of the album was released on February 21st of 2020 spanning 12 tracks with 4 being vocals interludes that elaborate on the concepts and themes of the tracks. In Bloom is a song about two people where one thinks the actions done by the other is in the act of romance where the other wants a platonic relationship and someone listens to them. “Conveyor” has a train-liking driving beat to it. The first verse talks about working as a group to lead to more success which contrasts the second verse which talks about when this does happen, the individual has made very little impact on society and the group. With the use of metaphors about insects such as a singular ant dying for the queen ant and a bee dying after a singular sting, this allows for the song to be an analysis of how society wants everyone to be packaged and manufactured in the same traditional way which is implied by the song and the vocal interlude being named “Conveyor” and “boxes” respectively. “Gagarin” is a space-influenced psychedelic soul song using space as a metaphor for loneliness. The title comes from Yuri Gagarin who was the first astronaut to ever be in space. jack/jill features Jill Scott reinterpreting her song “Cross My Mind” which begins with “He had that masculine thing down” before changing to “She had that masculine thing down” and “He had that feminine thing down” which is another emphasis on the gender stereotypes where a man must be masculine, and a female must be feminine. This interlude leads to “Colouour” produced by French multi-instrumentalist FKJ. It’s hard to describe how this song makes me feel other than relaxed and elevated. It is my favorite song off the entire album and the minute-long saxophone intro leading into Moses Sumney’s vocals which feel like they float into space as the track comes to a close. It is a perfect genre-bending mix of jazz, electronic, pop, and R&B all at once. “Neither/Nor” starts as an acoustic pop song and shifts into more alternative-based. The song can be described by the lines where Moses says “I’m not at peace with dying alone but I’m not at war either” and where he repeats the word nobody throughout the entire song.
The second disc opens with “Two Dogs”, a stripped backed song where he mentions the two dogs he had as a child with one being black and the other being white and refers to them being the yin and yang before mentioning him seeing the death of both and touches on their mortality. In the second verse, Moses mentions two new dogs in which one is giving birth and is in pain while the other is laying down in comfort. He then mentions that watched both dogs die from medicine as they turned gray. At the end of the song, he relates this to his own life where someone asks him “Have you ever at least loved a pet?” alluding to him not finding love in other people. “Bystanders” is a continuation of the more mellow and acoustic side of the second disc and explains why one should not waste themselves on people who mean nothing to them. The song melts perfectly into “Me in 20 Years”. “Keeps Me Alive” is another track about how love and relationships keep people alive while also questioning why this is so. “Lucky Me” is a sentimental but melancholic look at a mutual end of a romantic relationship where the couple is happy with the memories they have made and what they have learned from each other, but the lovers are saddened by letting each other go. “Bless Me” is similar to the style of music presented on Aromanticism. This is my favorite from the second disc. I love how the track builds into this gorgeous outro and his vocals become more passionate and is a fantastic outro to the album before ending with “before you go” which repeats the album’s themes about being alone and being in love through vocal fragments looping around through the stereo channels.
Throughout the album, Moses Sumney uses a vast array of musicians and producers to help create this project to his vision by calling on Thundercat, FKJ, Jill Scott, James Blake, John Congleton, Rob Moose, actor Ezra Miller, Michael Chabon, Taiye Selasi, Matthew Otto, Ian Chang of Son Lux, Adult Jazz, and Mac DeMarco. By using a large line-up of producers and instrumentalists, Moses can create tracks that have different genre influences while still connecting cohesively.
Moses Sumney’s græ is a fantastic genre-bending mix of pop, alternative, neo-soul, electronic, and folk music. The repeated themes about isolation, what makes someone masculine, and love allows for a 20-song project to sound cohesive throughout both LPs. For anyone who is a fan of James Blake, Bon Iver, Björk, or Kate Bush, this album is essential listening. To anyone else, this also is essential listening if you want to float and heal for an hour. I cannot wait to see how he can top this.
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