The narratives surrounding the Foreign Exchange's albums often overshadowed the conversation around the music itself. On their debut, Connected, it was that rapper Phonte and producer Nicolay constructed their tracks through back-and-forth Internet correspondence, having never met by the time their album was released. With their follow-up, Leave It All Behind, it was that the group had committed a total about-face, Phonte having traded rapping for singing. In both cases, the results of such improbable experiments were astonishing. But unlike Connected, which seemed to lose steam with time, Leave It All Behind had a different trajectory. That album grew only richer and more impressive as the years passed, revealing itself to be a remarkably complex, mature R&B record.
Now there's a third Foreign Exchange album, Authenticity-- but this time, there's no gimmick. What's more, it is about as far from "cool" or "edgy" as any music can be: It's an adult contemporary record that is actually musically and emotionally sophisticated in the vein of Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, and Everything But the Girl. If there's anything yoking these artists to one another, it's adulthood-- not just in the aural placidity but also a lyrical fixation on the politics of relationships. As with Leave It All Behind, this topical concern is very much intact. But musically, this is a much more refined album. Leave It All Behind insinuated a break-up-- if not one that's already happened, then one that's just on the horizon; Authenticity is undoubtedly the aftermath.
Nicolay has successfully synthesized the polished, straightforward constructs of Connected with the labyrinthine soul arrangements of Leave It All Behind. The music on Authenticity may initially sound remedial and elemental, even saccharine, but further listens reveal new intricacies. What kept pulling me back in was the album's final track, the somehow elliptical and conclusive "This City Ain't the Same Without You". Over a trickling keyboard pattern and a breezy guitar strum, Phonte and guest YahZarah echo the song's title into the ether with a lingering hook. It urged me to keep revisiting the album, and each time around, another song would stand out, until I soon began to admire all of them. But as with all albums possessing this level of depth and detail, that's how this kind of thing works. At a brisk 40 minutes, Authenticity reaffirms that sense of accomplishment, cementing the Foreign Exchange as one of the artists at the forefront of contemporary R&B's avant-garde.
