Review Summary: I'm a spiritual lyrical individual
Spiritual miracle lyrical individual
Spiritual miracle individual
Skippin' and flippin' and dippin'
The sound of nothingness.
George Miller is a truly interesting specimen. Both the creator of notorious YouTube series: The Filthy Frank Show and noted meme rap musician, his sudden cancellation of the massively popular series, after the release of a novel and the hugely successful album ‘Pink Season’, a surreal but hilarious album in his Pink Guy persona, came as a shock to many. His intent was to now focus on “serious” music. For many this was a good thing. George’s leaked personal serious music had several fans who praised its calming, lo-fi sound and sample heavy electronica aesthetic. Things were looking good and soon, George (now releasing music under his longstanding nickname Joji) released ‘In Tongues’, his debut ep. Is it a good start to the former internet legend’s serious career?
From the start, In Tongues sets out to establish a distinct feel. Diverting from Joji’s early sampledelidca trip hop into standard moody neo soul RNB, the ep immediately focuses on the sound it wants. The six tracks on the record are short and generally sound the same. Funnily enough for a 17 minute record it still feels like an eternity. The opener ‘Will He’ is slow burning RNB dirge with reverb heavy bass drums and a gentle trail of piano chords over Joji’s droning monotone voice. While the song sets a rather comfortable but melancholy mood, Joji himself sounds remarkably bored as he mumbles out a set of generic lyrics about heartbreak. ‘Pills’ is a noticeably similar track, with only the bass line being much more audibly and a clicking percussion track rumbling over it. Lyrically, it’s the same ***. More sadness, more melancholy, more heartbreak. ‘Demons’ is more musically upbeat with a set of light piano lines bouncing over the song. There’s a similar clicking track over the percussion and Joji’s vocals sound pleasantly more chirpy if still moody. ‘Window’ is much more percussion heavy but Joji himself sounds even more out of it and skull***ed bored out of his mind then before. More similar piano chords litter the track. More of the same. ‘Bitter ***’ is a nice change of pace actually. While still a dreary slow jam, there’s no a gothic feeling guitar line over what sounds like water running over a chattering drum track. Joji’s vocal hook of “‘cause I’m a bitter ***” is surprisingly quite catchy and sounds, funnily enough, quite upbeat enough to stick in your head. ‘Worldstar money (interlude)’ is the last track and a left over from Joji’s early soundcloud work. Led by a gentle ukulele over a sound collage of Worldstar clips, it’s a nice distraction before the Japanese sounding percussion kicks in and the track starts to stutter along into a trip hop beat. It’s a sudden but comforting and warm change and one of the most notable moments on the brief song. And it’s over. Sadly enough, the entire EP feels like one extended 17 minute ambient track given how samey and generic it sounds.
In Tongues isn’t anything special. If you like generic, Dime a Dozen sad RNB then look no further because Joji’s debut is for you. It’s a shame, given how Joji’s early music and even his Pink Guy records were incredibly creative and interesting. Yet here, it’s the exact opposite. The same sad dreary RNB you can find all over Bandcamp and soundcloud. There are some good ideas here and the overall vibe is very pleasing and chill, but lyrically the songs are generic and the instrumentation is hellishly forgettable. Really it’s funny how when Joji used to make Filthy Frank videos, he made one mocking soundcloud rappers and their generic replicability. Maybe the irony was lost on him in this case.
Standout tracks
Bitter***
Worldstar Money
