Syd: Beard
July 17
The last time we heard from Syd, she was heartbroken. On Beard, her ego is still a bit bruised, and there are a smattering of red flags (“I know you got my messages because they ain’t turning green”?!), but at least the singer fully embraces her identity as a lover-in-progress. On “Do Better” she acknowledges that self-growth can only start with herself; on “Walls,” she floats over dewy chimes as she promises she’s trying her best to heal. While much of the album settles into the moody R&B Syd does so well, Beard also plays with Afro-pop, Bossa Nova, and ’80s synth-led pop. Growth sounds good on her. —KM
Tasha: You Are Spring!
June 26
Before hitting play and hearing a single note, Tasha’s album cover for You Are Spring! prepares listeners for its mood: a camera tilts towards the sky while crowded by golden-yellow flowers that sprout from the soil, scaling upwards like they’re about to touch the clouds. The New York-via-Chicago singer-songwriter has long sung with the nonchalant beauty of a summer breeze, but her third album is the closest she’s sounded to physically sitting outside while recording: the strums of acoustic guitar are sturdy and wooden in “Quick!”, the drums snap like twigs on a forest floor in “Clarion,” and piano notes fall like water droplets in “Summer.” Even when Tasha is joined by peers L’Rain and Jamila Woods in “Spring,” she sounds like the sun itself wrapped up in their beams of lush vocal harmonies. —NC
Tricky: Different When It’s Silent
July 17
Tricky may not have released an album in six years, but he’s kept busy; Theis Thaws and Lonely Guest are just two of the aliases the trip-hop innovator has used to record new music. But, as press release legend has it, when Tricky’s manager, Alan Mcgee, heard the bones of the tracks that would become Different When It’s Silent, he saw a rose by any other name. “In my mind it was another side project,” Tricky said. McGee countered: “Mate, this is a Tricky album.” His 15th studio effort reconfigures blues, hip-hop, punk, and electro into a stark, collagist sound that emphasizes those genre’s similarities while highlighting their contrasts. This is the Tricky sound canonized. —HL
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
