Tinashe - Aquarius (out October 7 2014)

No thread for her yet? Talked about a bit in the Rolling R&B threads. 3 excellent mix tapes in 2012-13. Acclaimed early-2014 single ("2 On"). Proper debut album out in October. Latest single is "Pretend," with A$AP Rocky:

https://soundcloud.com/tinashenow/tinashe-pretend-featuring-aap-rocky/

"Pretend" is just heavenly. Highest hopes for this album.

Yes, looking forward to this. Haven't checked out her tapes at all.

the last tape was pretty bad aside from "vulnerable" - which katy b later reworked into something more transcendent anyway.

this new song is awful

"now i admit that i was fucking with a kid" is a line that could've been rewritten imo

it reminds me of something specifically i can't put my finger on but more generally it's pretty superior morose rainy day r&b à la brandy's afrodisiac

The Rocky verse in particular is very De La Soul/Teenage Fanclub

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOmdg3epcic

that asap rocky song is still trash but this is dope http://www.thefader.com/2014/09/15/tinashe-feels-like-vegas

"It begs for a Wiz Khalifa guest verse"

lol foh Fader writers

aw I like that A$AP track

Yeah "Pretend" is great. Weird hearing Stargate become Noah "40" Shebib on this Vegas track tho

2 On > Pretend > Heaven or Las Vegas

They're all great though.

idh why j0rdan hates "pretend", i'd've thought it was totally in his wheelhouse

*idg

it's like R&B as written by linda perry -- i'm good

Heaven or Las Vegas

interesting slip

haha i was about to say

although it's easier to imagine Jhene Aiko singing "Heaven or Las Vegas"

Uhh, that was quite intentional.

Pretend is hot garbage

Also Matthew trammel is a good writer I don't think he nec. meant the wiz thing as a compliment

yeah as a neutral statement i agree w/ him

The song definitely needs something imo... there's a lot of space there it doesn't know how to fill

xps guess that was a lil too subtle for me, Herbie Handcock

meh these non-"2 on" songs are boring, not sure she will ever get interesting ime

Are y'all about to pull a Jessie Ware/Imagine It Was Us on this woman and constantly judge every new track by how it stacks up against the one song in her discography that was actually atypical of her usual sound?

feel like jessie ware's recent output has been judged against far more than "imagine it was us"

idk, i guess i'm still checking for tinashe. i cherrypicked some of her mixtape tracks & like a few of em. just not v excited for this album yet.

Jessie ware is dope, this is trash. easy

Are y'all about to pull a Jessie Ware/Imagine It Was Us on this woman and constantly judge every new track by how it stacks up against the one song in her discography that was actually atypical of her usual sound?

― Greer

it's a slow night

i'm with j0rdan that linda perry doing r&b sounds most unwelcome, but i don't really see what "pretend" has to do with that. just sounds in the lane of all the other songs this year aiming to sound a bit like deep brandy album cuts off afrodisiac

don't think either new one is a patch on "2 on" (obv) and i hope it's not all in this vein but they're def better than anything from her mixtape days, i could see them clicking into place in album context

The more I hear from this album the less sense I have of what it's trying to be. This is track 2 from the record, and its pacing and long, wonky guitar outro spit in the face of album sequencing best practices

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftB-DccfZkY

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/22001/1/stream-tinashes-debut-album-aquarius

Awesome!

Stream doesn't work, blogs keep posting it anyway.

Content above all!

it's a pretty solid album

it feels very zeitgeisty in a contained way

that's vague

it feels zeitgeisty in that it tracks along post-drake, post-aaliyah is a goddess R&B but not like fka twigs or something where it's *all* about that

insofar as it's an album with inherent commercial motivations that still manages to sound 'hip' it feels perhaps even more idiosyncratic and considered than something like twigs where the aesthetic is really the meat of the album

not that the two need to be pitted against each other or anything -- i like the twigs album a lot too

could swap jhene aiko out w/ twigs and i think the argument still holds

I am very curious to hear this. does the stream not work for anyone? soundcloud told me it was because I was in the wrong country

Everything else on her soundcloud plays for me except the album stream.

About halfway through, and am enjoying this - Aquarius seems like a really suitable title, given the full on shiny, aquatic dub sonics and subsumptive dynamics. And, ah, pan-pipes.

Yeah, those pan-pipes...

Also about halfway through, also enjoying it.

it feels zeitgeisty in that it tracks along post-drake, post-aaliyah is a goddess R&B but not like fka twigs or something where it's *all* about that

what? the strength of the twigs album is that the pre-release narrative about that aesthetic is a gigantic red herring b/c it's not that relevant to the album, which feels like it's in another lineage entirely. it's got tinges of r&b about it but certainly not the real zeitgeisty sad-drake-r&b/glacial-aaliyah-vibes sort, and it's a v minor component anyway

How Many Times is amazing.

The stream I think is UK only but it worked for me using hola.

oh thank you, I recently moved to Canada from the US and have been meaning to figure out a good vpn

Man, I love the end of Bet, with the final thick chord, and then the guitar solo playing that little riff, which then becomes the bass-riff on Cold Sweat.

Half-expect Enya-sample from Ready or Not to drop at the start of Bet.

The best parts of this record recall Aaliyah's s/t slowjams.

It's crazy long tho, reminds me of Goldenheart that way - could have been a bit more concise.

Keys on Treason are vaguely reminiscent of a mbira, love them.
Talk To Me Nice is this perfect labyrinthine anti-jam.
Needs is okay, don't mind it.
I'm not sure the production totally works on Uh Huh but falsetto = good, interesting song.
Gravity a little synth-drenched and known territory for her.
None of my business needs a little more kick.
Tightrope good minimal song.

Really good but hard to compare to 333 as only a half album.

I rarely follow him but apparently Fantano gave this one a better ranking than p4k and loves it - with the exception of gravity which I don’t get but whatever.

New Tiny Desk
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/09/1230166589/tiny-desk-concert-tinashe

Are they no longer uploaded to youtube?

Anyways, very charming performance and tight live band!

Tinashe + Drum 'n bass = bop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlV8zVUgdLM

love it!

Certainly suits her style, cool re-use of the electronic mbira from Treason. I'm not crazy about the dnb return in style, it's always a little overpowering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrjESdPsLxE

bb/ang3l pt.2 - quantum baby is coming soon

song is just fine though

this thread is a great reminder to dig into the Tinashe catalog, i was unnaturally harsh on her sophomore vibes, i think aquarius was more than my brain could handle and i folded before her career even began lol oops :/

"nasty" has grown on me something fierce, can't stop listening

praying its current minor virality can result in a chart hit, there are few that would deserve it more.

(nasty nasty nasty)

New song “Getting No Sleep” (produced by Nosaj Thing) is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKj94nNuQkk

she can do no wrong these days

Listening to this now… damn, what a beat

I am confused why this track is not being widely discussed as an immediate highlight of the year (...or is it?)

I have listened to it approx. 500 times since Sunday night

it's amazing.

"nasty" seems like kind of a breakthrough for her, highest chart position since "2 on" (which i never heard lol).

I love “Nasty” but do also wonder how much of its success is due to “who’s gonna match my freak?” blowing up as a meme.

New song is excellent. I love the sonic consistency across all these tracks.

Love that “nasty” is a breakthroufh moment for her. The track itself: don’t love it, don’t hate it… new one is very promising though.

Yeah "nasty" is... fine

xps I mean yes its initial rise was squarely down to the popularity of a TikTok dance. Reminds me a little of the way RAYE, also an independent, stalwart artist, struck gold seemingly out of nowhere with "Escapism." The streaming numbers are continuing to grow, I don't know whether that means more people are listening to it of their own accord or if more people are doing the dance.

I prefer "Getting No Sleep" too, but I don't see it achieving the same level of virality. I guess with that title she is opening herself up to the possibility of a Janet remix (esp. as Janet herself edited some of Tinashe's own "Nasty" into a recent tour set).

how did you not hear "2 on"? xp

i wasn't listening to new r&b in 2014, i was busy buying disco records

xp raye is having a moment? nice voice but she needs better songwriters iirc.

No Raye's moment with "Escapism" happened some time back, before the album came out last year (which seemed to get little traction here though I liked it - and she's excellent live).

She might be one of the biggest and most distinctive current artists without her own dedicated thread on ILM now I think about it. I can't think of many R&B artists who would put out something as oddball as "Genesis" (her current single).

i'm a fan! a thread would be fun. i need to catch up on her output.

Yeah, weird what might be the non-ILM factor for RAYE. in real life she is way more popular than ILM-approved artists like say: Tinashe, Dawn Richard, Chloe x Halle, Victoria Monet, Kelela… all with one or more dedicated threads of their own.

Going just by number of listeners she is sort of on the same ballpark as Kali Uchis or Rosalia.

To put into context how popular she is out of ILM.

We've never had a Summer Walker thread (to name another big & culturally significant artist), but maybe she's not "distinctive" enough to be ILM-y.

Summer Walker is definitely pretty ILM-y and gets more discussion here than Raye does, but also is very much squarely in the pocket of traditional R&B (no bad thing) so it's hardly surprising that those discussions sit quite comfortably in the rolling R&B threads.

All I'm thinking when I'm hearing Getting No Sleep is how consistent she is, like adding another shiny drop in the ocean. It's a very good track, maybe not memorable or attention-catching for a new audience, but I prefer that (it's you Nasty that I'm looking at) - crossover appeal is overrated anyway.

Release date for Quantum Baby is 16 August - announced as the second installment of the trilogy started by BB/ANG3L

im a much bigger fan of late era tinashe -- with the exception of '2 on,' I thought there was a lot of cult hype but not a lot of goods songs in the early music ... it was a lot of cassie fan club / RIYL aaliyah talk but with songs that couldn't measure up. '2 on' was a huge record in the middle of imperial dj mustard though

"Cold Sweat" is my fave early Tinashe jam

i got into her through some remixes, this one's always been a favorite

just say (ashley beedle remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws31m5JVIb4

"cold sweat" is great

aquarius was a good album but songs for you onwards have improved on it

Problem with Aquarius is that it feels bloated and frontloaded… Bet, Cold Sweat and 2 On are keepers for me.

She started getting really good when she became an indie artist.

To me she was a revelation from her first mixtape. It's true she had a rocky trajectory, but her qualities were there almost fully formed. The Tinashe of Can't Say No, This Feeling, My High, Crossing the Cosmo is the same Tinashe I love now.

I agree with deej: she was fine early but has really connected with me in the last five years (333 was my #1 album of 2021). BB/Ang3l didn't grab me idk

"2 on" might be my Tinashe pick, except there's the schoolboy q part.

here's where we were talking about raye. i was intrigued by 'genesis' but it's super wack imo. the jazz breakdown is just godawful lol. can't even make it all the way through that thing.

Fair! I have no idea whether I like it or not - but it’s indisputably cringe even if one decides that is a plus

omg:

“Although a Grammy or No. 1 album would be “amazing,” Tinashe explains that she’s less interested in mainstream recognition than maintaining her creative standards. The lodestar for her upcoming album, Quantum Baby, is Janet Jackson’s “Empty,” and the result proves that she’s more focused on making her work interesting than digestible.”

https://www.thecut.com/article/tinashe-quantum-baby-album-nasty-interview.html

The album's good.

second half >> first

the creative standard of remixing her first hit in years with Tyga

quantum baby doesn't quite reach the highs of the last one but it's still very good

Red Flags - Cross That Line didn't convince me, the rest is quite good especially Thirsty and When I Get You Alone. First thing she releases in a long while that does not feel essential past the two singles.