The Singles Jukebox

Flume song title or Grammy thinkpiece headline? Discuss.

[Video][Website]
[5.44]

Cassy Gress: There’s a processed bloop noise in the right channel through the verses and the breaks that, unprocessed, would sound like 8-bit game effects, but Flume has got it sounding like sharpened knives. And then the BIG. ASS. DRUMS. Kučka’s vocals would be uneventful if not for her strong enunciating. This might be mixed overall a tinge too loud, to the point of distortion, but that might very well be intentional. It’s like an empty parking garage at night, with all the lights in the whole city off, and it’s so silent that you start hearing the blood rushing in your head.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: Just when I think there are no textures left to sink into, digital harmonica!
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Tourism at its finest. The dialog around Staples’ Summertime ’06 was incredibly rewarding in how we had so eloquent a young man talking about the plagues of American Society, and more often than not certain reviews would showcase less emphatic and sheltered writers showing their ass on a frequent basis. However, few had discussed that for all the points he made, Staples essentially turned in such a safe project. Pointless Kanye-style AutoTuned balladry, carefully curated Future samplings, so much conscious effort to intellectualize the art form of rap while being only adequate at the job he was doing. So when he gets to contribute raps to a mess of glitchy stadium future bass, alongside some self-described “Poptronica” act turning in some nonsensical whispy hook, we know the audience is supposed to be the people who might still look down at rap unless it’s some 46-year old cousin of J Dilla’s brother with a Madlib beat CD (don’t laugh, Stones Throw have been selling those guys albums for years), or whom have affected conditioning to why they love Future or Young Thug (a classic being “It’s not about words dude, it’s like, how he says words”; always a telling signal that Future’s descriptions of poverty or Thug’s Trayvon Martin tribute would never register for them as much as a chance to yell “HOE” or “BITCH” in public and feel real cool). To get to the point, it’s not so much that this record is a mess; because best believe, the darn song proves its point on its own. But it’s the fact that Vince is wasting his time, carefully negotiating an appeal for humanity beneath clouds of pointless din, yelling into a void of sympathy or empathy. It’s futile, despite all its nobility.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Someone rescue Vince Staples from this muddled mumblemess and meek off-brand Aluna.
[3]

Iain Mew: 99 Souls’ “The Girl is Mine” has been growing on me, and it’s best hook is the nagging, distorted “oh ahh ahh” under its chorus. “Smoke & Retribution” doesn’t have much in common with it, but it does use something similar — it’s a key part of the tectonic shift which moves the song so well between pixelly rap and the Kučka sections which sound like a fine AlunaGeorge song.
[7]

Will Adams: I know the point is to have Kučka’s hook offer calm contrast to Vince Staples’ verses, but it plays more like Flume blew all his pyrotechnics budget on the latter and set cruise control on the former. Still, as someone who didn’t get Flume from his successful Disclosure remix, now I understand how compelling this kind of sound — like a giant on a pogo-stick — can be.
[6]

Crystal Leww: Flume is now a big festival act, the kind that draws crowds of bros in snapbacks and tanktops, but he came up with some major critical credibility. “Smoke and Retribution” shows some of that big room experience combined with his underground roots. The verses are big and loud rap verses but those verses are being done by Vince Staples; they remind me of Rustie and Danny Brown’s “Attak”. The hook is flowery, floating, like his earlier work on his remix of Disclosure’s “You & Me”. This is all okay, just two years too late and a little too disjointed after all.
[5]

Brad Shoup: I’m reminded of Meth and Red trying to prank Ludacris with a shitty broken beat, but because Luda was the best pound-for-pound rapper at the moment, he wrestles it to a draw. Flume’s fritzing synthclusters and numerous false starts can’t shake Vince. In fact, he only gains strength. Perhaps that was clever pasting. But if you’re going to hand him a song called “Smoke & Retribution,” you better allow him the space to get vengeful.
[5]

Alfred Soto: I don’t know if Vince Staples sounds good over these electronic beats; it renders him more abrasive than usual. But I also don’t know if anyone will ever hear this track.
[5]