- Jay Haze is an artist with something to prove – but what exactly? Love and Beyond appears to give us thirty-six answers and no complete solutions. On disc one, we have LL Cool Jay Haze, the bastard offspring of Andre 3000’s many trysts on The Love Below. On disc two, we have an agglomeration of Dabrye, Flying Lotus and Funkstörung. On disc(o) three, we have the dancefloor technician previously known as The Architect shaking his structurally conservative arse with a fuckpony (in drag). So it’s difficult to know precisely what to say about Love and Beyond – ‘cos Love and Beyond doesn’t say anything precisely. Multiple discs, two and half hours – the strategy appears to be an over-offering (hence the “beyond”), which is either the ceaseless outpouring of a soul in turmoil or an inability to cut. It’s the strategy of the baggy monster, and while it worked for Herman Melville and Leo Tolstoy (at their best) it’s also the same strategy that created Prince’s Emancipation and Goldie’s Saturnz Return. Basically, even if you are a deep river of talent (ie, not Goldie), brevity remains the soul of wit, and most audiences will really appreciate the fact that you’ve kept things sharp and to the point. Off the Wall is forty-two minutes long. Transformer is thirty-seven minutes long.
Jay really has his own fingerprint: he manages to combine all his influences with this really weird sex and science fiction style and his unique way of treating vocals. This works best on the first disc, which should have been the only disc released in this set. As a hip-hop artist, Jay has managed to play to his strengths: balls (for doing a hip-hop record), eclecticism (in the flow of tracks), and beat science (in the depth and weirdness of the constructions, hitched to the vocal-led format). Highlights include ‘Intro’, ‘Don’t Tease Me’, and ‘Never Gonna Stop’. I also really think that hip-hop audiences should hear this album – even though the vocals lack that real edge of flow and introspection, the overall creation is far more interesting than recent albums by established artists getting good reviews.
The second disc has some gems (‘Like a Flame’, ‘Steady Smooth’, ‘Frozen’) and the odd stinker, but doesn’t really stand up as a cohesive listening experience, and as Love and Beyond asks to be judged as a cohesive musical statement, so shall it be. Interestingly, the best tracks on the second disc have got a really hard, dark, Skam-ish edge to them – again there’s a whole musical direction there that needs to be formed, focussed, polished and allowed to stand on its own.
The third disc (the LP version) is by far the weakest. In fact, it’s crazy that this should be released as Love and Beyond – it shares almost nothing with the CD discs stylistically or structurally. The press release says, “Confused? Good.” No Jay, not good – frustrating for listeners and undermining for you. ‘I Can’t Forget’ (which cribs the lyrics of Mr Lee’s Trax classic) is the most memorable thing here, but there’s nothing as accomplished as ‘Soul in a Bottle’. The tracks here are serviceable, heavy, dancefloor numbers (by numbers). Considering the plague of average dance music releases we’re choking on at the moment, why add to the glut? Adding a two star release to a four star release which also has a three and a bit star release tacked on does not add up to nine and a half stars, unfortunately.
So what is Jay trying to say? What is Jay trying to prove? The overall effect of the arrangement and presentation of this release amounts to saying, “look at me, look how diverse, eclectic and talented I am – and I don’t give a fuck what any of you think of me”. All of which makes this work, and the artist, less appealing, less interesting… and yes, less loveable. Love alone would have been ample.
TracklistCD1
01 Intro
02 Soo Far Away (feat. D:exter)
03 Don’t Tease Me (feat. Rockey)
04 Floating Away
05 Direct Hit
06 90 Deep
07 Prince of Spades
08 One Day at a Time (feat. D:exter)
09 Cocktail
10 On the Slide
11 New Freedom
12 Never Gonna Stop
13 Madhouse
CD2
01 Some Kind of Other Love
02 Bring Your Love
03 Jump That
04 Rocket for Sale (w/ Michal Ho)
05 Like a Flame
06 Reunion
07 Steady Smooth
08 Friday Funk You
09 Keep It Real
10 Cheese Flamingo
11 Frozen
12 Awakening
13 Your Girl is Mine
14 Never Fail Dub
15 Sneakin
2x12” vinyl
A1 Can’t Forget (feat. D:exter)
A2 Lost in Deep Space
B1 Ass to Mouth
B2 Crackle and Pop
C1 Vaporize
C2 Return
D1 Riddim and Bass
D2 Inner Hurt