Twenty-three year old Bryndon Cook isn't a child of the '70s or '80s, but you'd never guess that by listening to his work as Starchild & The New Romantic. He carries himself with the air of someone who's studiously thumbed through his parents' record collection. He cites Prince and Sade as primary influences, and his stage name references P-Funk mythology. That said, Cook also has a foot planted firmly in the current moment. His resumé as a touring guitarist reads like a who's who of forward-thinking R&B and electro-pop: Solange, Dev Hynes, Chairlift, Kindness. He's equal parts laptop producer and pop classicist, a singer who sits comfortably among the mostly electronic roster of Ghostly International.
On his debut EP, Crucial, Cook (a former Pitchfork intern) traffics in woozy R&B numbers built atop dense, keyboard-driven instrumentals. Take "Relax," which opens with the surface noise of a dusty record that gives way to squelchy synths, a steady click-clack beat and Cook's layered vocals, pleading "I wanna get to where you are/ Where you are." "Slammin' Mannequin" throws a handful of '80s cultural touchstones in a blender—a Grandmaster Flash-esque beat, the romantic comedy Mannequin, a guitar solo and compact synth chords that recall Prince—and hits purée. It's one of Crucial's most successful songs, even if its chorus lands with a disempowering thud ("You can be my slammin' mannequin/ Rock the greatest fashions and let it in/ Who's to say that you're not falling in love with me?").
Speaking of Prince, the Purple One looms large over many of the EP's songs—hardly surprising, given that Crucial borrows its title from a bootleg of studio outtakes that's been apocryphally credited to Prince and Miles Davis. "New Romantic" is built around a funk-indebted, rubbery bassline; its climax finds Cook cooing over a weepy guitar solo. On "Love Interlude," he backs up his vocals with a soaring falsetto, singing, "You can't stop lovers like us/Run from daybreak to dusk." "Woman's Dress" asks some very Princely questions ("Will I ever be enough for you?") but delivers them with the sort of muted sorrow that's become Frank Ocean's calling card.
Crucial is remarkably dense for a self-recorded album, though it has a tactile, analog feel that belies its origins as laptop music. While the musicianship on display is impressive, Cook's songwriting could certainly be sharper. None of these songs have strong enough hooks to encourage repeat listening or stand out from the rest of the EP. As a personality, Cook also tends to get lost in all that texture. His vocals sit fairly low in the mix, and his words often get swallowed up by the backing tracks. His stage name and cover art hint at a compelling narrative—one imagines a sort of retro-afro-futurist Man Who Fell to Earth—but Starchild never really emerges as a character on Crucial, beyond a mouthpiece for mundane pop tropes. Bryndon Cook shows a lot of potential in synthesizing the sounds of his idols, but even so, Crucial remains a largely earthbound affair.
