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Joseph Thornalley values his privateness. On the uncommon event that the London-born artist provides an interview, he retains his playing cards shut, solely providing sufficient particulars to foster extra curiosity. Thornalley, who information below the title Vegyn, doesn’t usually carry out stay and largely steers away from social media, however has labored with megastars like Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Kali Uchis, and Dean Blunt. His music doesn’t present many intimate particulars both, but it surely does replicate his eclectic influences, starting from dubby ambient to lush techno to toystore electro, in addition to his deep love of hip-hop. Even when it isn’t explicitly private, his music is at all times meticulously constructed and often beautiful, the product of a songwriter’s method to textural digital manufacturing. Thornalley’s new album, The Highway to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions, is one other ornate however shadowy assortment in his discography. It sounds unbelievable, however in the end doesn’t reveal a lot past his wide-ranging style.
Born of Thornalley’s itinerant life-style as a label head and in-demand producer, The Highway to Hell took form in numerous studios, lodge rooms, and residences all over the world. He hoped to interrupt out of his typical manufacturing strategies, difficult himself to put in writing songs on piano and guitar, devices he hasn’t but mastered. Lots of the Vegyn logos are current—cannily programmed drums, glowing synths that sit within the combine like low-lying clouds—however Thornalley tames the genre-hopping only a contact, retaining his sounds modern however homing in on the craving emotional core of ’00s R&B crooners like Ne-Yo and Toni Braxton. “Final Evening I Dreamt I Was Alone” and “Halo Flip” apply a unfastened jungle framework to the emotional balladry of the aughts, whereas “Stress Take a look at” feels like Craig David circa Born to Do It learning at Lofi Woman’s desk. These tracks are impeccably assembled, and, normally, fairly catchy if listened to on their very own exterior of the album. However as an entire, The Highway to Hell doesn’t fairly gel, feeling extra akin to a well-curated, vibey playlist than a unified assertion.
It’s when Thornalley actually lets unfastened that the file excels. The Highway to Hell’s trip-hop flirtations are amongst its strongest cuts; “Flip Me Inside,” a rainy-day mixture of glowing Rhodes, stuttering percussion, and Léa Sen’s smoky vocals, is a selected spotlight. “The Path Much less Travelled” is a blissful blast of massive beat, sunburst synthesizers echoing into the space like cathartic shouts from a mountaintop. Thornalley takes an particularly unusual left flip on the album’s midpoint and drops “Makeshift Tourniquet,” a festival-ready home heater. It’s probably the most propulsive track on the album, constructing rigidity by means of shuffling drums and pads that wobble out and in of tune like warmth strains off a stretch of desert freeway. When the track explodes right into a flurry of spacey sequences within the ultimate minute, it marks one among The Highway to Hell’s most thrilling moments, but it surely doesn’t signify a definite change in course. Like most all the things on the file, it jams after which we transfer on.
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