The Singles Jukebox

Checking in on the Lagos music scene (and we’ll be doing so again later this week)…

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Anjy Ou: With its languid production and short runtime, you’d expect this sort of song to be an interlude instead of a single leading up to an album release. It definitely sounds like it belongs on the “lo-fi beats to chill/study to” YouTube channel instead of Nigerian radio waves. But it’s a strong showing for Santi, who dropped his “debut album” (but fourth major release overall) Mandy & The Jungle on Friday. Santi lights up the song with his performance, at ease with the flow due to his background as a rapper. He weaves seemingly nonsense lyrics through the sparse yet warm production to give us the feel of a backyard hangout with your “mains,” where you’re exchanging banter, relaxed and carefree, even if only for two brief minutes. In today’s stressful world, and in Nigerian pop/afrobeats’ loud landscape, it’s a welcome retreat.
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Alfred Soto: Tap-tapping synthesized minimalism by a Nigerian artist whose word associations match the track’s wobbly momentum.
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Iain Mew: It’s very slight, though the vacuum wobble and hum of the synth suggests that retreating out of the world may be the point. What saves it from dreary chillout is the hint of emo rap in the  tone of the repeated “I’m a liar” and the way it prefigures the wider loosening and collapsing at the end. 
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Ian Mathers: The album version of “Sparky” is impressive enough — somehow stripped back yet frantic, placid yet aggressive, intense but with a wink in its eye. This is a case where it’s worth checking out the video, though (directed and edited by Santi), both for the narrative there and the simple but effective interpolating a reflective part of his “Murvlana” at a crucial point. The transitions in and out of the segment aren’t even trying to be subtle but it adds something crucial. “Sparky” alone (which is what my score is for) is great; in that more “complete” form it’s even better. 
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Nortey Dowuona: Waterlogged, misty synths wander aimlessly in a loop as a thin, bubbly drum beat holds them aloft as Santi, gently drifts over their head. Then, roller rink piano slides down as frothy bass pulls out sandy, raw drums as Santi dives in, absorbed. Then it’s back to the waterlogged synths and bubbly drums as he completes the loop. 
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Will Adams: I enjoy that the wooziness is suggested not just by the thin synth chords but the harmony they’re playing as well. But the song’s too short to leave much of an impression beyond the audible clipping.
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David Moore: Parties in music usually tend toward the bold and boisterous, lots of noise and shallow inclusion, which makes those parties sound like some of the more alienating social experiences I’ve had. But sometimes music can get at the tenuousness of a certain sort of party, the wispy little wires connecting you to everyone else. When I go to parties, I’m usually one bum interaction away from defeat and isolation, and sometimes when I’m at a party I need to bite my tongue three times just to make sure I don’t sever the rare fragile lifeline to another person. So I appreciate those songs that are more contemplative about partying — in the sound itself, I mean — without jettisoning the party itself, a contemplative party song rather than a contemplative song about parties. I’m thinking specifically about the way that The-Dream’s “I Luv Your Girl” neutralizes everyone else in the room with a suspended chord that never resolves. There’s a similar trick here, three chords circling around like two people in a tentative dance, enjoying this moment, stretching it out like taffy, surprised at its resilience but aware that it could break apart in an instant. And then the song does just that, breaks apart, right at the end when everything plops suddenly to the ground in a half-speed coda. The house lights come up and you realize that you were foolish to think it could last.   
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