ALBUM OF THE DAY
Album of the Day: Reginald Omas Mamode IV, “Reginald Omas Mamode IV”
By Andrew Martin · November 22, 2016

There’s a rich, organic quality to the music of half-Mauritian/half-English musician Reginald Omas Mamode IV; the South London composer’s tracks come off as breathing lifeforms that are equally steeped in hip-hop, funk, soul and jazz. Those rhythms are woven throughout Mamode’s self-titled debut, resulting in his strongest effort to date.

If you’re familiar with his work, you’ll hear pieces of this album’s sound across his previous releases, especially last year’s We Are The Universe EP. Whereas that project felt a bit looser, Reginald Omas Mamode IV is a fully formed collection of rhythmic mantras and tropical sonic arrangements. Here, his voice isn’t the main focus: he tweaks it to accentuate the album’s main ingredients—layered drums and tumbling bass lines.

He becomes a Dilla-esque hype man on “Bump It Up,” one of the album’s many standouts. Elsewhere, on “Talk to Me,” it sounds like he’s simply freestyling with the beat. That speaks to the heart of the artist and the record as a whole: Mamode wants to communicate with listeners, building a natural rapport that slowly draws them into his aesthetic.

Andrew Martin

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