- Just how serious is Matthewdavid? It's a question that hangs over In My World like a pair of ironic quotation marks. The LA producer's vocal-led second album is a quirky proposition: a suite of horny, late-night R&B jams couched in the language of new age spirituality. This search for enlightenment between the sheets makes a refreshing change from R&B's default dialogue of macho arrogance and pornographic detail, but frankly it is no less ridiculous. Musically, In My World may draw comparisons to outré acts such as The Weeknd, but lyrically it sounds more like Gonzalez. The difference being Gonzales is a prankster, whereas David seems utterly sincere in his tantric manifesto.
Such hippy idealism may fly on the West Coast, but by the time David tells us that "we can only dream a dream that's dreamt from the mind's eye" (on "Birds In Flight") more cynical listeners will be yelling, "Enough of this loved-up bullshit!" That's a pity as, sonically at least, In My World has plenty going for it. Brainfeeder's output can be harsh and fragmentary, whereas this Low End Theory affiliate's sound is mid-tempo, fuzzy and enveloping. The whole album sounds like it was mastered from a chewed-up old C90—it's post-chillwave music, busy and glitchy, but as relaxing as a soak in a warm bath.
In the woozy, psychedelic hip-hop of the title track or "Perpetual Moon Moods," there are shades of The Avalanches' sample-mosaics and Animal Collective's rhythmic mania. The spaced-out "Cosmic Caller" is less convincing; its mimicking of silky R&B tropes comes off like a Flight Of The Conchords pastiche. "Next To You Always," a pleasingly perverse slice of experimental hip-hop, uses many of the same sounds, but is far more irreverent. Likewise the playfully far-out instrumental, "West Coast Jungle Juke," whose title is self-explanatory. Tracks like these present liberating transcendence of the kind that David tries to articulate in his lyrics. He should let his music speak for itself.
Tracklist01. In My World
02. Cosmic Caller
03. The Mood Is Right
04. Perpetual Moon Moods
05. House of Horus
06. Next to You Always
07. Artforms
08. Singing Flats
09. West Coast Jungle Juke
10. Birds In Flight feat. the Light of Love Children's Choir