Veröffentlicht
Jan 19, 2022Veröffentlicht
December 2021
- The singer, songwriter and effortlessly funky producer returns with a world-weary but optimistic new LP.
- Even before the pandemic, Seven Davis Jr. was on lockdown. When he caught COVID-19 in 2019 ("before it was a pandemic," as he explained in an interview with 5 Mag), the San Francisco singer-producer was just coming out of an extended period of battling depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, financial instability and social isolation. His full-length debut Universes had come out four years earlier, followed by a series of low-key releases like S.O.S. and Choir Boy, and it wasn't until Davis recovered from the virus and re-trained himself to sing that his "above-ground" follow-up started to take shape—I See The Future, compiled from almost a decade of old tracks with brand-new vocals recorded post-recovery.
Compared to Universes, on which a robot sadly asks "Seven, why do humans fight," Davis is in a jolly mood here. The title track is a love song, and the hook actually goes "I see my future." "Escape The Matrix" isn't explicitly about how the powers that be pull the wool over our eyes—instead, he's asking a partner to run away with him to a better place. I See The Future is literally escapist: "Pack your bag / We outta here," he sings on "Let's Travel."
Hovering around a 120 BPM house shuffle, I See The Future maintains a strong sense of momentum, much more club-ready than the journeying across tempos and genres of Universes Yet there's a sense of laboriousness, of great forces acting on great weights, as if the whole thing were running on hydraulics. The drums are violently swung, and the hi-hats are so heavy it sometimes feels like Davis tied sandbags to each one.
His vocals are deeper than before, and they're buried in the fabric of the music, caked in sludgy effects (think Matthew Dear). He sings like a dreamer trying to speak in his sleep, each word crawling raggedly from his mouth. "I… share… my… my toys…," he croaks on "Share My Toys," as a monster rhythm guitar chugs away and New York singer Cesar Toribio belts exhortations in the distance. The greased-up bass on "U Already Know" and the barking-dog synths on "I See The Future" suggest Junie Morrison-era Funkadelic, but the record as a whole plays more like that band's earlier offerings (Free Your Mind…), where the instruments and vocals seemed to be emerging from a tar pit.
Davis doesn't make it easy to understand what he's saying here, and a mix dense with smoky reverb and errant funk squiggles doesn't help much. But as on a Young Thug or Sly Stone album, this approach rewards deeper listening to see if any given tangle of garbled syllables is actually something poignant. In the case of I See The Future, it often is. "This one's for those who care about me, who want to see me live," he sings on "Boys And Girls." The lyrics are filled with desires, promises, resolutions. "Gonna spend some time doing whatever I wanna." "I'm gonna be alright." "We got some things to get into." "You and me gonna make a whole lot of new memories." I See The Future is a light-hearted album, but its levity is hard-earned. He sees the future, and—somehow, implausibly, in spite of it all—it looks bright.
Tracklist01. Records feat. L3ni
02. U Already Know feat. Neil White
03. I See The Future feat. Oye Manny
04. Figure It Out feat. Juliet Mendoza
05. Escape The Matrix
06. Share Your Toys feat. Toribio
07. Boys & Girls
08. N'Joy
09. Mission Completed
10. Let's Travel...
11. New Life, Who Dis