Allocai drops a dreamy debut

Up and comer Allocai drops a dreamy debut in his powerful new single, “Cloud9,” a track that gives us a pretty good grasp of his multidimensional personality without overindulging in repetitive themes. Throughout the whole of the track, Allocai makes a point to fuse as many textures and richly diverse tones into a singular tour de force of a harmony that vaults between R&B territory in one stanza only to evolve into a rock n’ roll power ballad in the next. As experimental as this piece is, it’s far from inaccessible; quite frankly, I found “Cloud9” to be one of the most intriguingly smart pop songs out this season.

Allocai’s words are seamlessly integrated into the fabric of the instrumentation, and during my initial listening sessions with this single, not once did I get the impression that its main harmony was achieved through inauthentic means. There’s no hollow augmentations on his vocal, no plasticized percussive track forming a foundation beneath the bassline; everything is straight organic melodicism, and that’s a rarity to find these days (to put it mildly). “Cloud9” is filler-free pop in an era that has seemingly embraced anything and everything but.

The beats make up one of the more evocative components of this song, and personally I think that they add a lot of emotion to the narrative that simply wouldn’t be present otherwise. Through the progressing ascent, the mood of the melodies that Allocai is dispensing becomes magnified by the measured grooves that support him, allowing for us to feel connected to the words without relinquishing control of our own perspectives on his poetry. It’s engaging, wildly conceptual, and definitely a more erudite approach to songwriting than the majority that I’ve seen or heard in 2019.

TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/album/114014692/track/114014693

This master mix is really crisp, and I like that there’s virtually zero cluttering around the backend of the track (a consistent issue that I’ve encountered in American pop music in the last couple of months). It’s obvious that a lot of attention went into constructing the finer points of “Cloud9,” but that said, I think it’s important to point out that Allocai was careful to avoid the temptation to overproduce his debut single. He’s a lot more mature a rookie than one might expect him to be, and if he’s this adept at the very start of his career, you’ve got to wonder just how good he’s going to be after getting an album or two under his belt.

If “Cloud9” is a decent representation of who Allocai is as an artist, then you can definitely sign me up for more from his camp. Right from the get-go, this dynamic singer is coming out swinging, owning his verses and demonstrating a tenacity that I could only wish to hear more often as a music journalist. He’ll probably go through some growing pains as he gets his name established in the industry, but for my money, debut singles don’t get much better than this one is. Keep a close eye on Allocai moving ahead – I know I will be.

Jamie Morse

The music of ALLOCAI has been heard all over the world due to the radio plugging services offered by Musik and Film Records. Learn more – https://musikandfilm.com