best nu-andre 3000 verse

Sorry I probably mixed up Yoga and Tai Chi because of that story about Lou screaming in pain when his yoga instructor adjusted his pose.

A friend of mine plays on this record. He said that the sessions were completely improvised. So I think there will be at least a small portion of this album that is just free jazz

A friend of mine plays on this record. He said that the sessions were completely improvised. So I think there will be at least a small portion of this album that is just free jazz

I'm definitely interested to hear it. I was planning on writing about jazz flute in my Stereogum column this month anyway even before this news.

produced by carlos niño ?

We nailed it down and we experimented and we found a sound and it ended up being the core four of us — me on different woodwind instruments and digital flutes; Carlos Niño on percussion; Nate Mercereau on guitar, and he hardly ever sounds like he's playing guitar, but he's an awesome guitarist, he's kind of like a magician in a way; and then Surya Botofasina, he's a keyboardist.

And I think Frank pointed out one of his favorite tracks out of the three.

Ha this does sound like the sort of thing your friend would say just to be polite.

haha otm

all the same sounds like tyler and frank are a good hang / good friends

and andre seems like he's in a really good place?

excited for this!

It’s been 17 years since André 3000 released new music. Now, he’s unveiling his first-ever solo project.

In the inaugural GQ Video Cover Story, the rap legend spoke candidly about how he’s changed and why he made a record that nobody could have expected. Dive into the full… pic.twitter.com/bXJBgQrat6

— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) November 16, 2023

I hope this ends up being amazing. In 20 years, kids will be listening to mostly jazz flute-derived music and when grandpa says something about Andre having been a rapper, their minds will be blown.

in the very least it might have some cool material for people to sample and rap over

so looks like, so far, there's only a digital download or an $80(!) 3xLP version of this:

https://epicrecords.shop.musictoday.com/dept/andre-3000?cp=70395_108269_114163

kinda wish the rumors about this getting released by International Anthem would have been true

"first-ever solo project" is "look ma no hands" erasure

Andre Benjamin is talking about getting older and being 48 and other relatable (to me) content, but he can't Epic to put out a CD of this for his fellow olds?

I'm genuinely excited for this just to hear an artist I love following his heart even though most will probably give him shit for it. But I really was hoping for CD heh...

Listening now...

More digital sounding than I was expecting--more Steve Roach than Steve Reich so far.

Feels very definitely fully improvised, after the first couple minutes, for better and for worse. Plenty "wrong" notes, but the musicians around Andre create a bed of structure that it works.

A 70s vibe at root, but so far not a jazz vibe, certainly not a spiritual jazz vibe. Maybe closer to like Jan Hammer's more ambitious stuff?

But that's just through the first two tracks. Third track getting in on a little more Eno 'On Land' but meets something more percussive...

So far, it would be like a curiosity on International Anthem. I dig it. But 99% of people are probably going to have very little to no frame of reference for this sort of music, and put against the pent-up desire for a new Outkast record... I anticipate a lot of very negative reactions, or at best a lot of "WTF??" responses...

I'm about 30 minutes in (so just on the third track lol) and enjoying it but I quite like a lot of new age music and would say this definitely fits that bill, so far anyway.

yeah, this is a noodly new age album. when alice coltrane and kankyo ongaku are more widespread than ever, why not. is the start of his spiritual guru phase?

Definitely nu-New Age. It's appropriate that matthewdavid makes an appearance, it's got a little bit of that Leaving Records LA spiritual psychedelia thing.

There are already 15 "reviews" of this up on RYM, nice to see people really taking the time to evaluate this deeply.

I mean it's got a 3.79 rating that's really good

OK, I definitely listened to this, but I have no memory of what I heard, so I guess it fulfilled its function as ambient/New Age music. He should mail copies to every acupuncturist in the US for in-office play.

flute playin is um not good

yeah i'm about halfway through and it sets a nice mood at times, i like synth textures but he's not really enough of a player to make this compelling, he tends to come across these little 4/5 note quick melodies that he seems to fall back on repeating over and over with a few little random sounding runs here and there, there's really no throughline on his playing it just tends to lay there

i'm not sure i'd still be going on this if it weren't by andre 3000

It’s nice! A song from this might turn up on my tracks list, we’ll see.

It’s cool that he wanted to do this and did it.

would love Danny Brown rapping over flutes imo

"dreams once buried..." the last track is the best imo, goes the most out and out ambient wind chimey new agey

sorry but this is sad

i was so stoked about this and so prepared to dig the fuck out of this. but he ... can't play? wtf

Lil Wayne playing guitar energy

I feel like maybe he and lizzo should collaborate, she could help shore up his flute playing and he could help shore up her bars

Hits a ton of bad notes on the second track

new rays of the blue wild angel sun

bj kinda otm... getting madlib yesterday's new quintet vibes from it -- he clearly has a lot of passion for what he's playing but not the chops.

it sounds fine for what it is but ultimately ums otm- not the sort of thing i'd focus so intently on if it didn't have his name attached to it.

I love it

young people seem pretty in to ambient (in my limited experience)

listening to the closer (junior dad) and it's... nice?

Lol corrs

my co-worker said "this sounds like the shit always playing in your office" so I checked it out, very nice... for fans of Soil Festivities by Vangelis, or like O Yuki Conjugate

this totally totally rules, it sounds like it would be in that Chee Shimizu “obscure sound” book

this feels cringe in concept, but i still need to listen lol

It’s also very embarrassing in execution

I like it. But I probably listen to more New Age/Ambient than most Americans.

The real question is what is the tour gonna be like?

Let's not get it twisted, the issue isn't that it's a new age/ambient record, and theoretically not a bad one by many measures, it's that it's a flute record by a man who, god bless him dearly, cannot play the flute

this totally totally rules, it sounds like it would be in that Chee Shimizu “obscure sound” book

100%. if someone had told me this was a lost Steve Roach, Jorge Reyes, Suso Saiz / Suspended Memories album or similar i'd totally believe them, especially on 03 That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control ... Sh¥t Was Wild.

i totally disagree

I think it’s really great that someone as high-profile as Andre 3000 could generate this much interest in an album of drills for amateur flautists

i like it

the music itself is fine but it's ill-served not so much by A's incompetence, which doesn't necessarily have to be an obstacle, but by his lack of any ideas or direction

i think it's kind of a discredit to Shimizu's book to presume that the music is only there because it's rare, when in fact none of it is as lousy as this

i still find this to be okay though, largely due to what everybody else in the band is bringing

lol DJP

he should've released it as a Music Minus One record