I’ve been having this recurring dream for as long as I can remember. I’m running late—to school, to the bus stop, to my childhood home. And I’m too easily distracted to ever reach my final destination. Instead, I fiddle with the memory fragments that are placed where they shouldn’t be: the old classrooms behind my bedroom door, the uncle sitting next to me asking for my homework. I know I’m meant to feel an acute sense of urgency, but it’s instead consumed by a vague, pillowy placidity. When I’m awake, the oneiric transmissions of Anysia Kym bring me back to this headspace. Last year’s Truest is one of my favorite records of the 2020s so far, jam-packed with twitchy breakbeats and hypnagogic samples that entwine with Kym’s pitched-shifted lilt. Think Solange if she spent middle school watching Adult Swim and bumping Captain Murphy and Quasimoto.
On the heels of Kym’s short, inebrious spring EP with Loraine James is Purity, a 12-pack of punchy, loosely tethered morsels produced by fellow New Yorker Tony Seltzer. Seltzer has lived more than a few lives in the internet’s underbelly: He crafted glacial hymnals with Eartheater and minimalist thumpers with Smokepurpp while also co-producing one of Princess Nokia’s biggest hits, all before the pandemic. Nowadays, he’s something of an in-house producer for the coolest indie label in his city, 10k Global. Kym first bonded with Tony Seltzer as he was working on Pinball with MIKE, Brooklyn’s most beloved dot-connector and the de-facto leader of 10k. On Purity, Kym and Seltzer meet each other in the middle for something breezy and sumptuous, grounding Kym’s extraterrestrial R&B with heavy, head-busting percussion. Between sensual intoxicants like “Relaxxxxx” and late-night cruisers like “Big Difference,” the unexpected duo establish a frosty, dimly lit ambiance.
But where Purity comes up short is its choppy sequencing; at times, the record feels unfocused enough to be distracting. Kym’s earlier releases and both of Seltzer's Pinball tapes feel complete and neatly polished, largely because the tracks melt into each other seamlessly. But on Purity, the tracklist struggles to keep momentum. There’s a fine line between a short song making you want more and it making you need more; here, the way tracks stop and start so abruptly feels too much like an unfinished tape on Untitled. The only track to eclipse two minutes, “Long4,” is perhaps the most immersive, cushioned by its use of negative space. I wish the beautifully alluring “Afterparty” gave itself a couple more minutes to let its tension peak, and that “Interlude,” with its subterranean elevator music and spaceship blips, introduced the album like a UFO landing.
Regardless, there’s plenty of fun to be had with Purity, which features more than enough individual highlights to warrant repeat listens. The string stabs, sputtering snares, and fairylike melodies of “To Death,” are, ironically, lively as hell. “Haha, you’re so funny, you remember everything,” Kym sings, geeking in the face of new romance. “Keep it going, feel the weight of your wings.” When the fog clears around her voice, it sometimes feels like you’re peering in on her most intimate conversations. When paired with Tony Seltzer’s lushest production, like on “Afterparty,” the embrace is tender enough to feel tangible. “You did everything like you said you would/What’s the point of being in your head?” Kym lilts over sustained thrums of bass. “Took a chance and invited you/I don’t think that the party is over.”
Compared to the multilayered sound collages of her Kym’s solo work, Purity hits its stride by way of simplicity, mostly substituting in-track interludes and out-of-body beat switches for clean-cut, dancefloor-accessible motifs. Her classic R&B harmonies on “Automatic” trail behind her like a Need for Speed slipstream. It’s cool to hear the brolic 808s and kick drums Seltzer lays into tracks like “Automatic,” “Big Difference,” and “Long4,” creating a juxtaposition with the dreamstate Anysia Kym can conjure with just her voice. In spite of Purity’s slight flaws, that feeling is still there, yearning to be drawn out.
