Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love! (Album Review)
Wednesday, 07 December 2016
Written by Huw Baines
Generally speaking, it's easier to glean pleasure from something you worked hard for than something you didn't. Except when you're talking pop songs, that is. Then, the prize is immediacy and a perfectly-packaged endorphin rush.
Which means that Donald Glover faces an uphill battle from the opening moment of ‘Awaken, My Love!’, his new release as Childish Gambino. This is a difficult, dense collection of retro funk and soul cuts; a record content to make you sweat for its many rewards.
In 2016, Glover means different things to different people. To some, he's the creator and star of the offbeat TV hit Atlanta, to others he's still Troy Barnes, the jock-turned-nerd ensemble player from Community. Soon, he'll be Lando Calrissian for a new generation.
The unavoidable final part of this identity jigsaw, though, is provided by the backlash towards previous releases under the Childish Gambino moniker. To his detractors he's also a fraud; a comic who thinks he's got bars.
Such a reading requires a wilful dismissal of 2013’s ‘Because The Internet’, an uneven work that was nevertheless home to some fine, idiosyncratic songs that were outwardly colourful and internally riven by doubt and anxiety. But ‘Awaken, My Love!’ doesn't bother making time for that narrative at all. This isn’t Glover pandering to hip hop cred. It’s not a long-form response asking for his lack of ‘cool’ to be reconsidered. It’s like nothing he’s ever produced before and likely a sign that his future output will take a lot of risks.
Here Glover is part of a rich tapestry of sounds, his voice twisted, manipulated and pushed to its limits in pursuit of the cosmic funk escapades of the ‘70s. For better and worse it retains the detached, meta self-awareness that characterises much of his work and to fully embrace ‘Awaken, My Love!’ is to submit to the idea that you’re inhabiting a world that’s been meticulously engineered.
That works wonderfully when Glover throws straight over the heart of the plate, but sometimes less so when he attempts to make the ball move. Me and Your Mama, Zombies and Redbone are all richly satisfying melodic nuggets nestled among the sprawl, but Riot’s broad horizons, for example, only serve to further cloud the record’s strengths as an engaging piece of pop music.
Some of these extended, jam-derived pieces are the most musically involved Glover has ever appeared, but they also make you aware of just how good he can be when he keeps the fundamentals close to his heart. He proves adept when investigating hallucinogenic weirdness and clever hooks, but often those twin pursuits are walled off and a little disconnected. On a record this committed to maintaining its overall tone and ambience, that’s a shame.
Arriving this late in the year, ‘Awaken, My Love!’ has plenty of the spotlight to itself. And it stands up. It’s complex, often exhilarating and rooted entirely in a world that raises enticing questions about pastiche and Glover’s role as both performer and curator. That, and it’s also packing a handful of truly brilliant songs.
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