The Narcissist II is the latest reminder that Dean Blunt thinks about pop music very, very differently than you do. It is the first album for Dean Blunt as a solo artist after several releases with his recording partner Inga Copeland (first as Hype Williams and then as Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland), though Copeland makes appearances here. A remixed and remastered version of a free, 30-minute "mixtape" Blunt dropped in February, The Narcissist II is is the least substantial release in a discography that avoids substance by design. A droopy-eyed, unromantic collage of synthesizers, movie dialogue, and baked vocals, The Narcissist II comments on the ephemerality of modern media consumption by being ephemeral itself.
In particular, The Narcissist II replicates a very specific type of listening: hunching over a laptop, dozens of Chrome tabs open, crawling down a Youtube rabbit hole. You know the drill: locate an obscure track, listen to half of it, click on something "related" in the right sidebar, pause it, tab over to a Soundcloud page... tab back. It is consumption via distraction: do this often enough and you'll encounter no end of noisy vinyl rips and shitty covers. This is the best metaphor for The Narcissist II: distant, half-heard clips; novel, obscure, and impossible. The samples blur into the original until The Narcissist II is the noisy rip, the shitty homage.
This is why, during the course of The Narcissist II, at some point nearly everything will seem like a sample. The simple chord riff that beautifies the title track, the Nuggets-y guitar riff that populates "XXX", the descending organ that buoys "caught feelings"-- anything could be pilfered, because it all sounds familiar. And then there are the elements that actually are stolen: a single, guttural "uhnf!" from Rick Ross, the melody of Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" splayed over "Are You as Good as I Remember", ongoing movie dialogue sketching a nasty domestic dispute. (The latter being the first time, perhaps, that the menace and violence in Blunt's music has been made explicit.) At the start of "Direct Line 2", the harsh, hot sound of a cell phone placed too close to a speaker crackles; I wince every time, and search for my phone on my desk.
The Narcissist II, though, is better at providing an experience than truly memorable music. This is the salty electro-dub of Excepter minus the forgivable nature of generative music, and the flaky, paper mache edits of Ariel Pink minus any obvious affection for the source material. Blunt, always conversant in hip-hop, actually steps up to the mic on the closer, "Coroner", on which he tells you that "That sweet apple-bottom gonna get candied." Blunt's delivery is flat, ugly, and devoid of braggadocio; for the first time I consider that his taken surname might not be wholly weed-inspired. This isn't great music just like addled Youtube-ing isn't a great way to experience art. Like a lot of free internet mixtapes, The Narcissist II is compelling but ultimately shallow, and shallow is a fault, even if that's what Blunt was aiming for. Next tab.
