The race of Sam Davies It is played on two different circuits at the same time. In one, he plays himself against himself to prove that he is the rising young star who wowed the scene in ‘Cute Tapes’, the album of the Cutemobb collective with which they took a great place in the post-pandemic pole of the national urban. In another, he plays against a scene that has yet to be defined and where the most innovative proposals either belong to another league in terms of punch, or have jumped on new, more electronic waves. It is difficult to do avant-garde from the urban today. In a scene where you have to be blunt there is little room for subtleties. The elephant in the room, a zeppelin that flies over both circuits and that Sam Davies wears as a sponsor in the jumpsuit, is the Cutemobb collective itself, and especially, its cousin Leïti Sene, who thanks to his superb album ‘YUM’ and his bizarre double album this winter ‘APOCALYPSE’, in which he managed to take experimentation to a point so far from the normative, without losing his own essence, that it was brilliant and inspiring. A work composed halfway between Leïti himself and the producers who are also in charge of this ‘Atzilut’ what, it’s like Sam Davies has seen fit to title his new album.
This duplicity doesn’t sit well with an album that’s shinier than it looks. We’ve heard a job like this before, and well done, enough to repeat the modes and productions, slightly expanding the thematic range but even re-signing lyrics with a similar charge. Comparisons are hateful but there are times when they seem to be on purpose, and if not, if Sam Davies hasn’t wanted to establish a family diptych with ‘APOCALYPSE’We are talking about a blunder in the career of an artist talented enough for his career to shine with its own light without following any trail.
Songs like ‘Play’within the new releases, but also ‘Count to 0’ y ‘Loto Flower’ mark the way forward for a Sam Davies that, after taking the step forward of singing in Spanish and almost completely abandoning an English language that, within the Spanish-speaking market, is synonymous with failure for any artist who does not have the networks and power of the Anglo-Saxon industry, must now give the step to find a new path that leads him to get away from his influences to become an influential artist himself. For a member of the vanguard of the scene, that and no other should be his main objective. ‘Atzilut’ It remains as a curious movement that allows giving a new opportunity to Sam Davies but that is far from what he promised with his first advances.