(June 23, 2018) It’s summer again. And, so far, it appears it’s going to be among one of the hottest on record. Accordingly, +FE has decided to grace fans with a humidity-defying midtempo groove just in time for your family cookout and alone time sitting in front of the fan. The appropriately titled “June” opens with percussive hip hop before yielding to a yearning vocal opening up with all the feelings of vulnerability and anticipation of a new love experiencing the fresh bloom of summer.
The lyric delivers Phonte as a man both thrilled about and afraid of love in ways that are a throwback to troubadours singing honestly about the interiors of a man – he experiences love in ways that admit past mistakes and tentatively express closet optimism about the future. Such grown man emotions are welcome when so much written about contemporary male-female relationships borders on the juvenile, petty, or nakedly lascivious. This one feels pure.
(June 23, 2018) It’s summer again. And, so far, it appears it’s going to be among one of the hottest on record. Accordingly, +FE has decided to grace fans with a humidity-defying midtempo groove just in time for your family cookout and alone time sitting in front of the fan. The appropriately titled “June” opens with percussive hip hop before yielding to a yearning vocal opening up with all the feelings of vulnerability and anticipation of a new love experiencing the fresh bloom of summer.
The lyric delivers Phonte as a man both thrilled about and afraid of love in ways that are a throwback to troubadours singing honestly about the interiors of a man – he experiences love in ways that admit past mistakes and tentatively express closet optimism about the future. Such grown man emotions are welcome when so much written about contemporary male-female relationships borders on the juvenile, petty, or nakedly lascivious. This one feels pure.
The music, however, too feels like a throwback, a more recent one. One can’t hear the soundscape of “June” and help but wonder if the groove was a track left off of Love in Flying Colors or Tales in the Land of Milk and Honey, so similar is its sonic palate to tracks from those projects. Fans of those releases will welcome the addition but given the more thrilling edginess of 2018 +FE camp releases like Nicolay’s fiery Glaciers and Phonte’s mature No News Is Good News, one hoped some of that new revitalization of the duo’s solo sounds would reach its way to the headlining moniker of the label’s most revered outfit. In the meantime, +FE continues to grace us with cool, familiar grooves that are as expected as summer.
By L. Michael Gipson
The Foreign Exchange – June