Since releasing his first single as Zoo Kid in 2010, the Londoner Archy Marshall has treated his creative output like loose change spilled into couch cushions. He's released hip-hop mixtapes, ambient instrumentals, and remixes of other acts' songs; only some of his output has been under the name King Krule, the moniker he settled on for his 2013 debut full-length, meaning it's flown beneath the radar of casual music fans who were stunned by 6 Feet Beneath the Moon. The work of tracking what he does now has fallen to hardcore faithful, which seems like a smart long-term survival strategy and a sensible reaction to early career hype: halve your visibility, double your productivity, and wait for the universe to catch up.
A New Place 2 Drown is a name given to three new projects—there is also a handsome 208-page art book of sketches, photographs, and poetry from Marshall alongside his older brother Jack, and a short film. And then there is this album. All of it surfaced together this week, and the shared title seems to make an offer to fans and clarify a wish to the larger world. Marshall wants to be swallowed by his work, and he's offering you a chance to join him.
Marshall has often seemed eager for disappearance—journalists have dubbed him "press-shy," a euphemism for "loathes journalists"—but on A New Place 2 Drown, he achieves it completely. His voice was the star of 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, a blood-red streak against black, but here he dissolves it into the grey mist of his beats. Mostly he croons or mutters over crackles, drips, and clanks. He is an element in his landscape now, not a spotlit singer-songwriter or an ersatz modern-day blues singer. There isn't a single guitar audible on the album's drifting, dreamlike 37 minutes, and not a single song you could imagine Willow Smith attempting to cover.
What it shares with his older work is the septic world it depicts, full of flickering halogen bulbs, sticky synth keys, and corroded outputs. He's made tremendous strides as a producer, to the point where his touch exceeds Rodaidh McDonald's work on his debut. His sound is more three-dimensional, a series of shrouded corners and murmured conversations. This is wandering, grey-skies music, finding pleasure and even sensuality in solitude.
Like most others in the sentient universe, Marshall is a professed fan of hardcore '90s NYC hip-hop, stuff like Wu-Tang and D.I.T.C. Unlike everyone else, he gorgeously reproduces its gloom and loneliness, and finds a way to integrate it into his own style. He does this mostly with a succession of sounds so obsessively perfect and tactile they seem like whole songs themselves: The hollow, rounded thunk of the drum track on "The Sea Liner MK 1" precisely mimics the sound of colliding pool balls, and hearing it for only a measly four minutes seems like a cheat, somehow: It is a drum knock so perfect you would cross the street to listen to it.
The formal grain of his music bends increasingly towards hip-hop: The sluggish tempo and tar-thick synths of "Dull Boys" and "Thames Water" suggest across-the-pond admiration of Houston's DJ Screw, as does the halting sing-song of "Buffed Sky". His mumbly, string-of-conscious delivery on "Sex With Nobody" conjures early-'00s indie rappers like Serengeti or Atmosphere. He is steadily narrowing the gap between the rap he admires and the music he makes, and A New Place 2 Drown seems like evidence that he should start producing for rappers regularly.
Marshall's own words are haunting but elusive, ripples moving across the surface of his music that dissipate before your ear focuses on their meaning. But you get a peek into a mind state and a mood with every legible phrase: "I'm pretty sure I'm dying as I speak," he offers on "Arise Dear Brother". "She plays me Barry White, all night/ She drift into the light," he sings wistfully on "Ammi Ammi". The most ringing line, clearest in both its setting and its intention, comes from "Buffed Sky": "I'll fly solo," he sings, drawing out the second syllable of the last word for relish and emphasis. It seems like it's working for him.
