PARTYNEXTDOOR is, always has been, and always will be mysterious. That’s part of his charm, and most of what makes his music so addicting. Love in question, sex for certain, and an alien ability to sound like no one to come before, he’s more than Toronto’s trip-hop, electro-R&B crooner; he’s the world’s premiere authority on psychedelic soul, having largely championed the scene by his own doing. But, with the mystery and the hallucinations come an expectation that aside from sounding like PARTYNEXTDOOR, there’s really nothing that can be expected.

 

To that, his recent run of singles seems to be leading towards something larger, but no one can really no for sure just when that day will come. First, a juxtaposing A-Side / B-Side sort of release: THE NEWS & LOYAL, and now SPLIT DECISION. His latest speaks to the darkly romantic, critically sexual lane of non-pop future R&B that has driven most of his experimental career.

 

Built on the foundation of a low-fidelity, echoey beat, PARTY seamlessly belays pain-wrought vocals and equally telling lyricism, only making way for a speed dial begging the question of whether or not anyone is actually listening to what he’s been trickling pout over the last year. 

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We all better be, because with SPLIT DECISION, whatever it is that he’s working on is bound to be influential and brimming with experimentalism, at a scale rarely reached by anyone else in music.