(Hardcore Frankophiles will have heard a slightly different version in a 2015 tribute to Aaliyah.) The influence of James Blake, Sampha and Jonny Greenwood would have been heavily present here even if those artists hadn’t appeared on Endless. As Ocean gets busy with a circular saw (those stairs won’t build themselves, you know), the track embodies the merging of R&B and sadboy electronica that’s been developing ever since Ocean first emerged. You realise how much you’ve missed that devastating falsetto the second it hovers into view on a cover of the Isley Brothers’ 1976 hit At Your Best (You Are Love). In fact, soulful melody is in no short supply throughout Endless, and Ocean’s voice ensures it’s delivered more passionately than any other mainstream pop star is managing right now. Not your average pop star … a still from Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry stream. That’s certainly the case on Alabama, but that shouldn’t discount the fact it also features Sampha’s gorgeously plaintive question: “What can I do to love you more than I do now?”
It’s just that these tracks have the tendency to dissolve into cut-up voices, or pitch shifts, or electronic bleeps. There are clearly songs here, as proved by the swooning synth lines on Commes Des Garçons, or the reggae-tinged Slide On Me, staged over a skittering rhythm and acoustic guitar. It must have thrilled the execs at Apple Music.Įndless feels like an artistic statement before a pop album, even if it’s ultimately an impressive merging of the twoīut the idea that this is a singularly avant-garde statement would be wide of the mark. Strangest of all is the final track, Higgs, which seems to be a spoken-word advert for a Samsung Galaxy phone, read aloud by German artist Wolfgang Tillmans over pulsing electronica. Song structures are often free-form, especially through the second half of the record, where the point at which one song ends and another begins is difficult to keep track of. There are computerised voices (arty curtain-raiser Device Control), hazy electronic shimmers (In Here Somewhere) and the odd snippet of conversation littered across Endless, the latter providing a pleasingly lo-fi counterbalance to what is overall a rather futuristic and lush aesthetic (the London Contemporary Orchestra provide a variety of sumptuous strings).
Because Endless isn’t always an easy listen.
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