Stream RL Grime’s highly anticipated sophomore album, ‘NOVA’
Four years ago, RL Grime‘s unique sound design and production arrangements took the electronic music world by storm. Since then, many in the community have hailed Henry Alfred Steinway’s debut a masterpiece, some even going so far so to reminisce on the album as trap music’s magnum opus. Unarguably, tracks like “Scylla” and “Core” have gone on to become staples in the trap music community, just as much as they have in the EDM community at large. They created an era of producers all over the world that were hoping to embody an ounce of the raw, thumping 808s that Steinway’s early material so exuded. But, Steinway has always been one to suggest that his influence would not diminish, even without directly saying the words, his annual mixes, and festival appearances have always suggested so much.
The inception of RL Grime came at a time when electronic music was at its height in the states — Skrillex‘s Recess had just been released that spring, and deadmau5 was fresh off the summer release of his album while(1<2). and now, with a visibly changed dance landscape in the states and an assimilation of the music into the very fabric of contemporary culture — what many refer to as the post-EDM era, and an age of electronic music that dips its toes in the proverbial ponds of hip-hop and pop — RL Grime’s returned with his second album, NOVA, an effort that channels the sheer potential for the genre’s production future while also providing a range of sounds that harken back to the early material that drove his project in the beginning.
On NOVA, RL Grime’s collaborations run wild. He’s created a collection of searing coalescences of melodic rap and R&B refrains from some of hip-hop and R&B heavyweights like Miguel, Jeremiah, Chief Keef, Tory Lanez, and Ty Dolla $ign; taking the depth of his project to unforeseen heights. Meanwhile, though Steinway’s beats are less concerned with trap than they used to be, his music’s fitting for the US festival circuit, with moments of sheer ecstasy, rolling drum’n’bass, and the same unfathomable drops the world has grown to know, love, and look forward to.
Categories: Music