Album Review: Outsideness — ...Then After?
Outsideness dropped their second record. It's just as fresh, quirky and sincere as the first one, but tighter and even more musically inventive.
The debut was a template for their own brand of weird R&B. Now they're throwing rock, garage, drum and bass and IDM into the mix. It sounds unlikely, but, as you'd expect if you heard the first record, it works beautifully.
Partly due to the magic of the music itself, partly due to how structures and constant stylistic switches keep things interesting. And partly due to how Azalias' and Freidrich$'s voices interplay with each other and keep everything together.
The songs are more ambitious than before, but also more direct. Bigger production, denser arrangements, yet you still feel the seams. Nothing's been sanded smooth.
The first record asked where the two outsiders came from. This one asks where they could go from here. The answer's an album that proves they can bend toward almost any genre and effortlessly make it speak their hearts.
Right from the first track, "Alright," the group shows off their new approach. You hear something like a a vocal improvisation from Azalias. Her voice is genuinely interesting there. It's a free thing. Nothing can be more liberating than to hear someone singing because they can't help it: the kind of attitude you find in traditional music or jazz — some of music's freest and most unstructured forms. And there's clearly something from outsider art in the record, which the musicians themselves actually claim describes their style. It's rare that people working in that territory admit it. It's honest, and yeah, it's cool.
But the free-flowing vocals in "Alright" are placed on top of dense, high-quality, perfectly mixed sound. On one hand, you can hear it's got a blurred, soft quality to it. But at the same time, it sounds tight and professional. Azalias' vocal is mixed really well — pushed back a bit into the mix, which makes it feel like a solo from some jazz virtuoso, an expression of freedom. It's a truly interesting effect and a promise of things to expect on the album.
On the second track, "Freedom," the acoustic guitar creates beautiful sound landscapes. I'm picturing flooded meadows, fields submerged during spring floods, water everywhere. Then Azalias' voice drifts in at some point above everything, and here it sounds even more like traditional music — maybe Eastern European — Ukrainian or Bulgarian. The whole composition is genuinely strange. It's got ambient genes in it, as well as folk, but it also shares DNA with lo-fi acoustic stuff — Neutral Milk Hotel or early Elliott Smith, deliberately rough and bedroom-recorded, but with a wounded heart beating underneath. And then they throw trap beats into the pot, like what Lil Peep did. It's a wild, completely unexpected combination.
"Even To Me" picks up where that line started. It begins as acoustic folk, flirting with rap — a more or or less familiar territory, both for the project and for casual rap listeners. But Ousideness manages to inject something new into it. At some point the production lifts, switching into full-on drum and bass mode, with Azalias singing in her indescribable manner.
"Container" doesn't stop here, adding dubstep to the mix — not the aggressive brostep of Skrillex and Rusko fame, but the original underground UK genre — think early James Blake or Zomby. Other kindred spirits in the world of electronica that come to mind are Nosaj Thing with his deep bass and dark synth arps and Forest Swords with his murky atmosphere and found sound aesthetics. Outsideness combine all these colors with their own pop / R&B sensibility, completely rebuilding the song after 2:10, much like How to Dress Well did on his earlier records.
"Haunt" blends acoustic lo-fi with intimate R&B balladry and brings in the signature stumbling rhythm you hear across Outsideness and Freidrich$'s last record. It's drum and bass that starts revving up and then stops halfway through.
The stumbling rhythm makes a comeback on "Got Me", but here it's strictly funky — reminding you of D'Angelo's Voodoo. The acoustic foundation is calm and still, like a serene landscape, and the groove underneath it is like a horse that's off-beat, running through its meadows and fields out of sync with the whole world. When synths start coming in, the soundscape transforms into a collage, with fragments breaking apart like a kaleidoscope or patchwork quilt. The vocal lines twist around themselves. The song floats somewhere between intimate indie pop, classic balladry and experimental avant-garde music you could hear at a biennale.
"La Jetee" ventures even further into rock territory, and the rhythm keeps stumbling, which sounds great. But the real payoff comes near the end when the drums — whether it's an actual drummer or some clever programming, it's hard to tell — finally take off. They accelerate into overdrive and start pounding, and suddenly the whole track is hurtling into eternity. That off-kilter horse from before? It learned how to run at sports-car speed, blowing past everything. Yet the vocals and the song itself stay genuine and rooted, even with all this new rock muscle behind them.
Then something unexpected (and genuinely clever) happens. "Dance" starts off as one more ballad built on the stumbling rhythm we've got used to for the past few tracks. However, at some point, the rhythm transforms into a rapid repeating pattern you haven't heard (literally) anywhere else. It doesn't sound like any genre in particular. Closest thing might be what's known as footwork or juke. The new rhythm holds together until it slows back down into a gorgeous ballad, where the pattern becomes familiar again. The whole structure plays with the listener's expectations, messes with how you perceive patterns in the first place.
The core of everything — the authenticity, the essence of what Outsideness is — stays intact. But the shape keeps shifting, flowing like a wizard who can wear any face. The stumbling rhythm at the start grows powerful, then beautiful. It's like those fairy tales where a snake or a frog transforms into a princess. The thing inside doesn't change, only the way it looks like on the outside does.
"Water" boasts what might be the catchiest set of melodies on the record. It takes no prisoners, starting with a disarmingly beautiful vocal duet of Freidrich$ and Azalias.
The track's got a thick atmosphere, and a groove at the end that hits hard. But there's also a sense of flight, of unstructured improvisation, like a confession. The words and melodies just pour out, like a channel has opened and started broadcasting through. You feel like you're listening to thoughts — unfiltered and unshaped — that came through raw and sincere.
If the album needed a radio single, it would be the closing track, "Hold." It brings together every hallmark of the record — lo-fi yet groovy acoustic guitar, Azalias's background vocalizations soaring free like birds and her flowing half-spoken half-sung passages, Freidrich$'s deadpan delivery, bouncy groove, strong melodies, and, of course, the trademark raw, unvarnished edge of the production.
Listening to "...Then After?" is like watching a magician show you his cards during the trick. You see how he does it, but that doesn't make it any less magical.
Outsideness aren't trying to convince you they understand contemporary music or that they're above it. They take what they hear around them — fragments of R&B, chunks of rock, drum and bass DNA, the breath of folk — and assemble something genuinely alive from it. Alive because there two voices inside it, voices unlike others. With a vision that's a few steps ahead of the curve.
The debut was a template for their own brand of weird R&B. Now they're throwing rock, garage, drum and bass and IDM into the mix. It sounds unlikely, but, as you'd expect if you heard the first record, it works beautifully.
Partly due to the magic of the music itself, partly due to how structures and constant stylistic switches keep things interesting. And partly due to how Azalias' and Freidrich$'s voices interplay with each other and keep everything together.
The songs are more ambitious than before, but also more direct. Bigger production, denser arrangements, yet you still feel the seams. Nothing's been sanded smooth.
The first record asked where the two outsiders came from. This one asks where they could go from here. The answer's an album that proves they can bend toward almost any genre and effortlessly make it speak their hearts.
Right from the first track, "Alright," the group shows off their new approach. You hear something like a a vocal improvisation from Azalias. Her voice is genuinely interesting there. It's a free thing. Nothing can be more liberating than to hear someone singing because they can't help it: the kind of attitude you find in traditional music or jazz — some of music's freest and most unstructured forms. And there's clearly something from outsider art in the record, which the musicians themselves actually claim describes their style. It's rare that people working in that territory admit it. It's honest, and yeah, it's cool.
But the free-flowing vocals in "Alright" are placed on top of dense, high-quality, perfectly mixed sound. On one hand, you can hear it's got a blurred, soft quality to it. But at the same time, it sounds tight and professional. Azalias' vocal is mixed really well — pushed back a bit into the mix, which makes it feel like a solo from some jazz virtuoso, an expression of freedom. It's a truly interesting effect and a promise of things to expect on the album.
On the second track, "Freedom," the acoustic guitar creates beautiful sound landscapes. I'm picturing flooded meadows, fields submerged during spring floods, water everywhere. Then Azalias' voice drifts in at some point above everything, and here it sounds even more like traditional music — maybe Eastern European — Ukrainian or Bulgarian. The whole composition is genuinely strange. It's got ambient genes in it, as well as folk, but it also shares DNA with lo-fi acoustic stuff — Neutral Milk Hotel or early Elliott Smith, deliberately rough and bedroom-recorded, but with a wounded heart beating underneath. And then they throw trap beats into the pot, like what Lil Peep did. It's a wild, completely unexpected combination.
"Even To Me" picks up where that line started. It begins as acoustic folk, flirting with rap — a more or or less familiar territory, both for the project and for casual rap listeners. But Ousideness manages to inject something new into it. At some point the production lifts, switching into full-on drum and bass mode, with Azalias singing in her indescribable manner.
"Container" doesn't stop here, adding dubstep to the mix — not the aggressive brostep of Skrillex and Rusko fame, but the original underground UK genre — think early James Blake or Zomby. Other kindred spirits in the world of electronica that come to mind are Nosaj Thing with his deep bass and dark synth arps and Forest Swords with his murky atmosphere and found sound aesthetics. Outsideness combine all these colors with their own pop / R&B sensibility, completely rebuilding the song after 2:10, much like How to Dress Well did on his earlier records.
"Haunt" blends acoustic lo-fi with intimate R&B balladry and brings in the signature stumbling rhythm you hear across Outsideness and Freidrich$'s last record. It's drum and bass that starts revving up and then stops halfway through.
The stumbling rhythm makes a comeback on "Got Me", but here it's strictly funky — reminding you of D'Angelo's Voodoo. The acoustic foundation is calm and still, like a serene landscape, and the groove underneath it is like a horse that's off-beat, running through its meadows and fields out of sync with the whole world. When synths start coming in, the soundscape transforms into a collage, with fragments breaking apart like a kaleidoscope or patchwork quilt. The vocal lines twist around themselves. The song floats somewhere between intimate indie pop, classic balladry and experimental avant-garde music you could hear at a biennale.
"La Jetee" ventures even further into rock territory, and the rhythm keeps stumbling, which sounds great. But the real payoff comes near the end when the drums — whether it's an actual drummer or some clever programming, it's hard to tell — finally take off. They accelerate into overdrive and start pounding, and suddenly the whole track is hurtling into eternity. That off-kilter horse from before? It learned how to run at sports-car speed, blowing past everything. Yet the vocals and the song itself stay genuine and rooted, even with all this new rock muscle behind them.
Then something unexpected (and genuinely clever) happens. "Dance" starts off as one more ballad built on the stumbling rhythm we've got used to for the past few tracks. However, at some point, the rhythm transforms into a rapid repeating pattern you haven't heard (literally) anywhere else. It doesn't sound like any genre in particular. Closest thing might be what's known as footwork or juke. The new rhythm holds together until it slows back down into a gorgeous ballad, where the pattern becomes familiar again. The whole structure plays with the listener's expectations, messes with how you perceive patterns in the first place.
The core of everything — the authenticity, the essence of what Outsideness is — stays intact. But the shape keeps shifting, flowing like a wizard who can wear any face. The stumbling rhythm at the start grows powerful, then beautiful. It's like those fairy tales where a snake or a frog transforms into a princess. The thing inside doesn't change, only the way it looks like on the outside does.
"Water" boasts what might be the catchiest set of melodies on the record. It takes no prisoners, starting with a disarmingly beautiful vocal duet of Freidrich$ and Azalias.
The track's got a thick atmosphere, and a groove at the end that hits hard. But there's also a sense of flight, of unstructured improvisation, like a confession. The words and melodies just pour out, like a channel has opened and started broadcasting through. You feel like you're listening to thoughts — unfiltered and unshaped — that came through raw and sincere.
If the album needed a radio single, it would be the closing track, "Hold." It brings together every hallmark of the record — lo-fi yet groovy acoustic guitar, Azalias's background vocalizations soaring free like birds and her flowing half-spoken half-sung passages, Freidrich$'s deadpan delivery, bouncy groove, strong melodies, and, of course, the trademark raw, unvarnished edge of the production.
Listening to "...Then After?" is like watching a magician show you his cards during the trick. You see how he does it, but that doesn't make it any less magical.
Outsideness aren't trying to convince you they understand contemporary music or that they're above it. They take what they hear around them — fragments of R&B, chunks of rock, drum and bass DNA, the breath of folk — and assemble something genuinely alive from it. Alive because there two voices inside it, voices unlike others. With a vision that's a few steps ahead of the curve.