- Touching on everything from drum & bass to indie rock, Eddington Again's debut album is a riveting exploration of disparate genres and intense feelings.
- In an interview with Black Artist Database, Berlin-via-Los-Angeles experimental artist Eddington Again expressed frustration at being lazily pigeonholed into genres that don't accurately represent their work. It was a Nina Simone interview in 1997, where she rebuked the term jazz and opted to describe her work as "Black classical music," which inspired Eddington to adopt the same term for their own music. "People keep calling my music cosmic R&B and future R&B, when half of my album is me rapping over drum & bass, garage and electronic music," they said on Twitter.
The shifting nature of identity and art is important to Eddington, so much so that they call Naomi9, their debut album on !K7 Records and the end of a trilogy started with the Damani3 and Damani6 EPs, the "third iteration" of themselves. For this third iteration, their sound is more refined and expansive, blending disparate styles together seamlessly. Rattling trap-infused breakbeat underpins searing indie rock, only for the mixture to become sultry with intoxicating vocals about love, reinvention and radical empowerment.
Take the washed-out guitars that paint a lush and paradisiacal garden on "0306," or the growling approach of the bassline on "Unkind"'s high-octane night drive—the sheer diversity of production keeps things fresh and dynamic. Naomi9 darts from leftfield soul to foreboding underground club and then back to brooding, pensive indie. What keeps it all on-road is the auteur at the wheel. Eddington Again throws out earworm hooks that land perfectly in the pocket, though they're still able to change gear at a moment's notice. Sometimes it almost sounds like a guest vocalist is coming in. The steely techno of "ESP" showcases an Azealia Banksian command of the dance floor, while the bassline melody on "Bn" recalls the breakdown at the end of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain." These rock and shoegaze sensibilities, paired with Eddington's bluesy delivery, add a captivating mystique to the journey of spiritual renewal and healing they chart out on Naomi9.
In the same aforementioned thread of tweets, Eddington spoke about lead single "Petrify": "Rapping about [people] around you being afraid of your power over drum & bass is not R&B." "Petrify"'s guitar riff is all driving forward motion, but also distinctly melancholy. Lines like, "I didn't mean to petrify you / I just want to tell you my secret / Ain't no need for the denial / I just want you to go deep in," show a sort of radical vulnerability. Eddington has an acute understanding of how to break down the walls that prevent love from shining through in its most unconditional form. They push to "hit the core" on the bustling, blissed-out "Core22," plea for a lost lover to "please stay open for me" on the neon glide of "Clash" and roughly sing snippets of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" on "Sashatrasse." Whether packaged in a half-spoken half-rapped delivery, a yawning baritone or an operatic croon, every line is a beautifully written promise to choose love in any circumstance and in the face of any obstacle.
On closer "Cake Code," stabbing synths and dawn-heralding chords underpin rousing chants of, "I ain't felt like this in a long time." It's the most assured that Eddington sounds on the entire album, and the infectious euphoria feels like the appropriate way to cap off the preceding emotional turbulence. At a brief yet enchanting 32 minutes long, it's impressive how much sonic and mental ground Naomi9 covers. It's poppy on the surface, and the feelings are open and clear, but it's also complex and occasionally dense. Ripe with raw feeling and earnest writing, hip-hop, '80s indie rock, goth and underground dance music are woven expertly and efficiently. In the world of physics, an Eddington Limit defines the maximum luminosity of a star. With the intoxicating Naomi9, Eddington Again exhibits the makings of a blindingly bright future and a defiant willingness to broaden the boundaries of genre, or as they put it on "0306": "Don't bow your head / Expand instead."
Tracklist01. Remedies
02. Petrify
03. Unkind
04. Core 22
05. Clash
06. ESP
07. 0306
08. BN
09. Sashastrasse
10. No Sun
11. 03:00
12. Cake Code