André 3000’s new album, New Blue Sun, is the X in the road where several roads meet. This is the first instrumental release by a rapper who is without equal as a vocalist and admires the music of Alice and John Coltrane, but here has made something closer to the atmospheric sounds of Japanese electronic musicians from the ’80s and American New Age artists who released private-press cassettes in the ’70s. You do not need to care about any of that, though, because it’s not likely you’ll find New Blue Sun difficult. This music gently outlines the space it plays in, as much a vibrational frequency as a set of melodies and ideas. Leave it on loop, like an electric water-and-stone fountain bubbling away, and let its modest nature reveal its strengths.
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