Comes on Ltd. Patina Rush Splash vinyl LP.
Aaron Frazer once received instructions during a DJ set at the San Diego hi-fi bar Part-Time Lover to “spin what you love like you’d be listening in your living room.” For Frazer that sounded like downtempo French synthpop from Captain Mustard, the funky bop of Foster Sylvers’ “Misdemeanor,” Marcos Valle’s Brazilian disco, and Toto’s yacht-rock deep-cut “Georgy Porgy.” To his surprise, the set felt like a cohesive mix, even though he’d jumped across multiple genres and continents. That night informed his creative freedom in making his second solo record, Into The Blue.
“I think when you operate based on your compass being ‘music that you love,’ on a subconscious level there will be a thread that makes it cohesive,” he says. That feeling translates across Into The Blue, an album that could blindside his loyal fanbase in soul music, but contains potential pop hits and summer anthems that could expand his audience. Frazer has delivered a break-up album that effortlessly moves through cinematic soul, street-soul, Rumours-esque soft rock, Latin tropicalia, and lo-fi gospel, while never losing a cohesive thread of the self-exploration required to transcend heartbreak.
Known as the silky falsetto singer and drummer of Durand Jones & The Indications, Frazer officially began his solo journey in 2021 with Introducing…, produced in collaboration with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys at Easy Eye Sound. With Introducing… Frazer learned to work at Auerbach’s intuitive pace, embracing snap decisions and first takes that came out as mid-tempo and sweet soul. The experience was unlike his sessions as a member of the Indications, who relied on collective analysis and multiple takes to find their sound.
Frazer has described this record as a “clear portrait of who I am as an artist.” He painted that canvas with the help of co-producer Alex Goose, whom Frazer describes as the DJ Premier to his Guru. Frazer met Goose while he was in Los Angeles scouting for a new place to live after a breakup with his long-term partner in Brooklyn—the breakup that informed this record. The friendship began with Frazer sending Goose a message, expressing how important his Blueprint 3 Outtakes mixtape was to him in 2009 and that he still thought of it often. From their first studio session in L.A., the connection was fast and productive. Frazer originally thought his next record might include several co-producers, but he “kept coming back to Gangstarr” and their one-vocalist/one-producer formula. “In that sense, it was just me and Goose.”
The two bonded over hip-hop, David Axelrod’s cinematic soul era, and spaghetti Western film scores by Italian composers like Ennio Morricone. By embracing the music they love, the album blends Goose’s drum programming with live instrumentation from an array of musicians, giving the record light touches of hip-hop movement that modernize Frazer’s traditional soul sound. Perhaps the greatest departure for Frazer is “Fly Away,” largely built from Goose sampling ‘90s R&B group Hi-Five’s eponymous single. The origin of “Fly Away” speaks to Frazer’s quest for magic in the recording sessions: He wrote “Fly Away” on piano with Lydia Kitto of Jungle before hearing Goose’s beat. Days later Goose played his beat and Frazer heard the same chord progression as the song he wrote with Kitto.
“I started singing the lyrics to this song that Lydia and I wrote,” he says. “We sing it together over top of this beat, and it’s totally working. It was so funny to watch Goose’s face because all of the sudden there’s a finished song in front of him from playing a beat. He was like, ‘What was that?’”
In a way, Into The Blue is Frazer revisiting a “feeling over fidelity” mentality that produced his first solo success. His earliest solo material as the Flying Stars of Brooklyn was released as a seven-inch with Colemine Records in 2017. The song “My God Has A Telephone” is a demo-quality gospel song that has transcended its lo-fi sound to amass over 70 million plays on Spotify. “Perfect Strangers,” which resides at the crux of Into The Blue, revisits that private-press gospel sound by stripping the song to Frazer’s vocals, electric guitar, and a back-up choir. With this album, Frazer strikes a balance as songs like “I Don’t Wanna Stay” required “painstaking production and arrangement” to get the “psychedelic orchestral sequence,” while the magic on “The Fool” was best left as an iPhone voice memo instead of a re-tracked version by production duo Cold Diamond & Mink of Timmion Records.
“Obviously it sounded great because Cold Diamond & Mink are an amazing production duo, but it didn’t have that demo magic,” he says.
Ultimately, Frazer hopes his fanbase will “trust me to be their DJ” on Into The Blue. For the soul heads, the single “Dime” with Chilean artist Cancamusa has the Rhythm King programming that will trigger comparisons to Little Beaver or Timmy Thomas, while the Latin pop elements give the song crossover radio potential.
“It’s not about coming from anyone else. It’s about coming from myself.” (source is www.spin.com)
