Review Summary: ‘I’m just floating, gliding, tipping, hoping I ain’t slipping’
Milo made a name for himself after his debut and follow-up compilation album ‘Thing That Happen at Day/Night’ as the one of the funniest, most sincere and intelligent indie hip-hop artists to grace the scene, throwing internet culture references together with ideological theory and the generation defining self-doubt with brag-rap conventions and commentary on both himself, his peers and the genre he inhabits in general. His follow-up ‘so the flies don’t come’ continued his creative process, using his earlier references to philosophy as templates to compare his life with, more occupied with his personal experiences than anything. He showcased a much more energetic, angry delivery juxtaposed with his trademark jazzy beats, more driven and stylistically mature, and 2017’s ‘Who Told You to Think?’ was a major collaboration with a major lyrical focus on his personal life and commentary on hip-hop as a genre and its culture.
However, on ‘Budding Ornithologists…’ Milo stops attempting to subvert expectations or impress listeners with grand ideas, themes or philosophy, instead adopting the free-form flowing jazzy attitude toward songwriting he more deeply explored on Nostrum Grocers to a very interesting extent. No longer does he rely on his political and social references as the backbone of an album, instead utilizing them as opportunities for a listener reconnect with individual tracks after experimental jazz instrumentals and switches in production style to create a huge, unpredictable soundscape for Milo to fade out and into.
Interestingly, his attitude in not trying to please fans or reinvent himself creates an atmosphere of laidback creativity and disregard for convention he has preached from the very beginning. Another large change is the lessened use of features, ensuring the focus stays more with Milo, instead using more samples to create contrast or context for his experiences and emotions. And for a rapper who has spent most of his career trying to speak on both huge societal and tiny personal issues, trying not to speak any objective truth, worldview or opinion beyond his own, is not only refreshing but perhaps the only way to remain, in lack of a better term, Milo.
On his Bandcamp page, Milo comments on the album saying ‘[it] doesn’t have an arc or a point or a moral to preach’, more of an exercise in expression than the well calculated artistic step forward he has come to be known for. He leaves more room for the listener to interpret the album themselves and takes a step back in trying to convince or inform, instead creating an unpredictable piece of art freed from the conventions previously placed on him.
