#HiphopNews [Album Reviews] Tinashe - Aquarius: Overall, Tinashe's debut succeds on almost every level

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Tinashe, 'Aquarius': Track-by-Track Review

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By John Kennedy | October 07, 2014 2:05 PM EDT

Tinashe's arrival on the mainstream music landscape comes at a time when experimental R&B is rapidly crescendoing. Yet even within the ranks of emerging women singers showing just how quirky and eccentric they can be (Jhené Aiko,Kelela, BANKS), Tinashe may be the songbird best primed for superstardom. Her certified party starter "2 On" has ignited anticipation for her debut album Aquariuslike a lit trail of kerosine, ever since it hit DJ playlists early this year. The single peaked at No. 24 on the Hot 100 chart.

The 21-year old singer could've taken the momentum—paired with the positive reception of 2013 mixtape Black Water—and hit the features circuit, hopping on your favorite rappers' hooks or remixes. But instead, she split time between the stage and her own studio sessions, laser focused on building her fanbase and executing her vision for one of RCA's priority projects. The result is a lustful listen that often centers on either coming together or breaking apart.

Former Bullying Victim Tinashe Gets Her Shot at R&B Stardom

There are fitting rap features that give this impressive rookie LP some edge (ScHoolboy Q, A$AP Rocky, Future) but Aquarius is mostly an emotional tug-of-war of thigh-shaking highs or starting-all-over lows. While there are definite follow-up hits ("How Many Times" is an essential), the project is a moody affair, a sum that's greater than its parts. With interludes that are sometimes complementary ("Indigo Child") and other times unnecessary ("Nightfall"), the project often nods to the past with direct influences from Janet Jackson and Aaliyah. Yet still, Tinashe is brightly blazing a trail for music's future.

"Aquarius" - "Welcome to my world," Tinashe greets at the close of the spacey title track, aptly setting the tone for the whispery soul aesthetic that characterizes much of the album.

"Bet" feat. Dev Hynes - A mystical ride-or-die anthem, "Bet" brushes off haters of love and assures that Tinashe is down for the long haul: "I'ma be around for ever, always." Devonté Hynes' (a.k.a. Blood Orange) guitar outro is an exhilarating exclamation point.

"Cold Sweat" - One of the more dynamic records on Aquarius, "Cold Sweat" finds the budding rookie stepping back and observing the fake friends and overall sycophancy that comes with stardom. "Don't think I've forgotten who was always here,” she notes, over a beat that begins at a crawl before evolving into a pendulum of synths. "Where was you last year?”

In these five minutes you realize just how versatile Tinashe's vocal instrument can be, as she shifts from breathy purrs to shrill FKA twigs-like falsetto to nonchalant rapping before vaulting back to upper registers.

"Nightfall (Interlude)"/ "2 On" feat. ScHoolboy Q - Pour up, light up and repeat. Tinashe's breakout single, "2 On," has steadily commanded airwaves and dance floors for the majority of 2014, getting you faded to DJ Mustard’s familiar synth bounce and Christmastime chimes. ScHoolboy Q's rambunctious bars give this feel-good smash just the right amount of scruffiness.

"How Many Times" feat. Future - Aquarius' true centerpiece, this midtempo red-light special will get you in the mood with one always-relevant query: “How many times can we make love in one night?” Flipping Janet’s 1986 single “Funny How Time Flies,” Tinashe, um, elongates her vowels like Rihanna to
create a sensual vibe, an aural afrodisiac. But then, just as you’re about to drag and drop this onto your horizontal playlist, Future happens, barking a play-by-play like a horny Major Payne.

"What Is There To Lose (Interlude)" / "Pretend" feat. A$AP Rocky - Powered by Detail's crashing snares and tumbling drum machine, this hard-edged second single depicts a now-fragile relationship that's been fractured one too many times. Lust and denial are the glue holding this love thang together, as Tinashe concedes, "Let's pretend you never lied/ So I can give it up all night."

Meanwhile, A$AP doesn’t live up to his moniker in the sack: "Got her screaming out 'I'm coming’/ Frontin' like you really want it," he rhymes.

"All Hands On Deck" - Finally, the relationship bottoms out and our broken-hearted hostess is on the rebound, looking for someone—anyone—to "fill this empty void." With its hokey flute and thick bassline, Stargate and Cashmere Cat's instrumental wants so badly to be a DJ Mustard beat, but instead feels a bit like "Whistle While You Work." You remember how that turned out for the Ying Yang Twins...

"Indigo Child (Interlude)" - MPC taps and piano keys lay the foundation for this esoteric interlude that paints Tinashe as a "beacon of light."

"Far Side of the Moon" - A reluctant Tinashe pulls the plug on "empty love ambitions" over funky metallic percussion and Sasquatch stomps. "Maybe I was mistaken/ Maybe we could be perfect," she contemplates, before better judgment kicks in. Brandy's influence is undeniable here.

"The Calm (Interlude) / Feels Like Vegas" - The irony here is that this mellow turn-up track feels more like Toronto than Sin City, thanks to Stargate's wintry synths that recall "I’m On One." Still, Tinashe hits the jackpot with a flirty toast to success and rough sex.

"Thug Cry" - Tinashe channels Ashanti of a decade ago, sporting her sweetest falsetto to inform you that her loving is so good it brings tough guys to tears. "You acting so gangsta/ You swear that ya hard/ But I got you wrapped around my finger/ Yeah, you be thanking the lord/ You’re all mine," she insists, rap-singing. All that "Thug Cry" is missing are some guttural Ja Rule riffs and a verse from Vita.

"Deep In The Night (Interlude)" - Did Tinashe swipe a page out of Beyoncé’s book and dig up some old recital audio? Clocking at just under a minute, this intermission features a young girl singing over live piano, adding innocence toAquarius (though the barely legal singer has been anything but thus far).

"Bated Breath" - Here's where Tinashe has been hiding her pipes for much of the album's runtime. Just on the verge of love, "Bated Breath" is the emotional stalemate just before taking the big leap: "You're still waiting on the moment, breath is bated/ I wish I could hold you, I can't take it." The atmospheric soundscape and extended piano breakdown help this ballad resonate deeply.

"Wildfire" - On a Rihanna LP, "Wildfire" could be a combustible crossover record. Here, it's a strong final song that marks the conclusion of a toxic romance: "You're poison running through my veins/ End it with a spark into a pool of gasoline.”

"The Storm (Outro)" - True to its title, this closer's rolling thunder and rainfall over gentle keys and wailing sends off a solid debut album.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/6274224/tinashe-aquarius-track-by-track-review?utm_source=twitter

New York Times:

A Voice That Oozes Instead of Shouts

Tinashe’s ‘Aquarius,’ an R&B Slink

It’s stunning how in recent years mainstream female R&B has effectively been distilled down to one word: Beyoncé.

Yes, there is Rihanna, who has always been more of a pop-minded singer than one inheriting and repackaging soul values, and also Ariana Grande, who is a classic R&B singer hiding out in arena pop. And there are flashes in the pan like Jhene Aiko. But in the same way that the discourse about female rap often begins and ends at Nicki Minaj (the rise of Iggy Azalea notwithstanding), Beyoncé has big-footed the conversation: an inimitable superstar and in many ways still a vital, forward-looking one.

All of which makes the small victories of the young singer Tinashe (pronounced tin-AH-shay) even more impressive. Her single “2 On” (featuring Schoolboy Q) has been the defining R&B song of the summer, and her debut album “Aquarius” (RCA), out on Tuesday, is, quite unexpectedly, one of the most idiosyncratic major-label female R&B albums in years, full of slow and heavy breathing.

Unlike Beyoncé, a maximalist through and through, Tinashe has taken a path charted by Janet Jackson, Aaliyah, Ciara and others: She’s a low-key sensualist with a mild undertow of brooding. She doesn’t sing with bombast, but rather in smoothly spread out phrases somewhere between whisper and lip lick. “Aquarius” rarely raises its voice, and prefers ooze to slap.

In this way, “2 On” — throbbing and buoyant, full of insouciance — was something of a bait and switch. It’s one of several great forays into R&B by DJ Mustard, who produced the song along with Redwine and DJ Marley Waters. But it paints Tinashe as a party-hard type, a singer who’s primarily interested in motion, even though the slinkiness of her voice clearly works in the other direction.

On the rest of “Aquarius,” she barely bothers with tempo. The album takes its cues from the exhale of her voice. “In a world full of darkness/ I’ll become your midnight sun,” she sings on the title track, over barely-there biorhythm production (by Ritz Reynolds) that recalls Chicago steppers music and early Aaliyah. “How Many Times” is effectively a rewrite of Ms. Jackson’s cool, breathy “Funny How Time Flies.” “Pretend,” the album’s second single, has some movement, but is built on yawning synths and brittle noise effects. There’s nothing upbeat about it.

Tinashe’s unhurried, unflustered style can make it difficult to distinguish between when she’s in the flush of lust, and when she’s bummed out. But it does help her smooth out a few of the clunkier lyrics on this album (“The government, the media — they want us blind”).

Sometimes her restraint has the air of sternness, as on “Bet,” on which she sings with as much force as anywhere here, and which closes out with an icy, slashing guitar solo by Devonté Hynes. Notably, the album is peppered with a series of spacey interludes. The most exciting one is “Indigo Child,” which has an earth-mover beat by Evian Christ.

After several songs like this, it’s disorienting to hear “All Hands on Deck,” a high-quality copy of “2 On” produced by Stargate and Cashmere Cat. These higher-energy songs, in the context of the full album, feel like knowing ploys.

But maybe that’s because this gesturally significant album doesn’t wholly come from the fringe. By most metrics, Tinashe, 21, is a classic Hollywood striver. A singer, dancer and actress since she was a child, she’s had a recurring guest role on “Two and a Half Men” and was part of a girl group called the Stunners, which had marginal success.

After parting ways with the Stunners, she began self-releasing songs — including a lush cover of Lil Wayne’s “How to Love” — and, eventually, whole mixtapes. Her 2013 mixtape, “Black Water,” showed her to be near the forefront of the moodiness that’s been a key force on the R&B fringes in recent years; see the work of Kelela and SZA, among others.

Tinashe was in good company but, it turns out, not the right company. Her slide into wider acclaim, in fact, has more to do with the templates that have lately been set by men. She may be descended from Aaliyah, yes, but she’s more immediately indebted to Drake and the Weeknd, Toronto’s slow-burn minor-key kings, who have been helping to remake the sound of hip-hop and R&B for the last few years. It’s not a coincidence that “Feels Like Vegas” sounds like a Weeknd outtake, and it’s not a surprise that “2 On” got further gasoline when Drake released his own version of the song.

In the mainstream, Tinashe isn’t alone in these ideas, strictly speaking. The underwhelming Ms. Aiko rarely sounds awake when she sings, and has found success that way. And over the last few years, Ciara has tried a version of what Tinashe is now doing. But Ciara has always been more preoccupied with the body than the heart. Her lack of vocal presence guarantees that it is easier to connect with her music physically than emotionally.

That leaves an open lane for Tinashe, then. Factor out Beyoncé and also Rita Ora, who sings the tempestuous hook on Iggy Azalea’s “Black Widow,” and there’s not a single female R&B singer on the most recent Billboard hot R&B/hip-hop songs chart besides Tinashe, who appears both for the extremely durable “2 On” and for guesting on the Kid Ink song “Body Language.” Soon, the singles from Beyoncé’s most recent album will have come and gone. There will be no one to shout Tinashe down.

With 'Aquarius,' dawning of a new age for Tinashe Kachingwe

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Tinashe Kachingwe seemingly came from nowhere to become a fixture on the Billboard singles charts with "2 On," but a visit to the singer's home reveals a long road to stardom.

A poster from her time with a childhood modeling agency hangs in one corner. Memorabilia from Tinashe's late '00s stint in teen pop girl group the Stunners mingles near artwork from her mixtapes. Overlooking her bed is a shelf housing glass trophies from years of competitive dancing — ballet, tap, jazz — and affirmations are strewn all over her room ("Don't wait. Work" and "Imperfection is beauty," to name two).

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And then there's the bare-bones recording studio alongside the turquoise-colored wall, where work began on her major label debut, "Aquarius," released Tuesday. Janet Jackson's "Janet" rests by a computer, mixing board and keyboard, and a nearby whiteboard bares a lofty goal: "And the Grammy for best new artist goes to Tinashe" (courtesy of her 15-year-old brother).

"I've always had this crazy tunnel vision ... the same end goal in mind, as long as I could remember," the 21-year-old says, turning her attention to the many relics in the La Crescenta home she grew up in and which she still shares with her parents and two younger brothers. "Even if the game plan has changed and shifted along the way."

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When Tinashe (pronounced tin-AH-shay, it means "God Is With Us" in her father's native Zimbabwe) debuted with "2 On" in January, the thumping club banger could have easily been swallowed by the mass of bouncy songs on the radio. But the number, with its hypnotic, minimalist beat from West Coast hitmaker DJ Mustard, gained steam on urban radio as a strong entry in a song-of-the-summer race dominated by heartthrobs and rappers.

"It's almost like it's still taboo for a female to make a party song. It's really strange, not like girls party any less than guys," Tinashe says, curled up on a couch in the living room. "That female perspective was something that was missing, and still missing for a lot of records out there.

"I can't tell you the last time I met a female engineer, and I've never worked with a female producer, and that's crazy to me. I want other young women to be inspired to do it. I really don't get why there isn't more."

After spending her childhood acting (appearing in "The Polar Express" and "Two and a Half Men"), Tinashe was recruited to the Stunners at age 14. The group released an EP and toured with Justin Bieber but split after four years.

Having gleaned the basics from logging studio time, she began recording herself in her bedroom studio. In early 2012, she issued her first mixtape, "In Case We Die."

Filled with trippy electronic beats and syrupy harmonies that glide from sensual to brooding with the same effortless lilt that made Janet and Aaliayh genre chameleons, the mixtape reinvented Tinashe as an alt-R&B siren.

She scored a deal with RCA Records and continued issuing mixtapes to the Internet from her bedroom — 2012's "Reverie" and 2013's "Black Water" — as she began crafting songs for her debut album. It was the first time working outside her bedroom studio alongside other producers and songwriters.

"People weren't really familiar with the fact that I had a perspective," Tinashe recalls. "When I started working with other producers — especially ones who had created hits in the past — it was hard for them, I think, to listen to somebody who seemingly just came out of nowhere."

"Aquarius" is one of the strongest R&B debuts in years. Built around spacey interludes, flickering synths and slinky, future-R&B productions, the disc unfolds over minimalist down-tempo beats and hushed, breathy rhythms steered by Tinashe's sultry vocals.

Apart from the swaggering "2 On" and "All Hands on Deck," she rarely chases club hits, instead opting for a trippy mood album that updates the '90s cool of Aaliyah, TLC and Jackson, whom Tinashe samples on a track.

Schoolboy Q lent a verse to "2 On," Future meets her sexy come-ons in "How Many Times" and ASAP Rocky fills in for an unqualified lover on "Pretend." But there are left-field moments too: Devonté Hynes bringing an electric guitar solo to icy cut "Bet" and production from Stargate, Mike Will Made-It and Blood Diamonds. There's even a cameo from a 7-year-old version of Tinashe on the sweetly cooing piano ballad "Deep in the Night" — the first song she ever wrote and performed.

Despite the litany of players, Tinashe emphasizes that the vision is hers.

"[The label] understood that we had to stay true to a certain extent to what I've already created for myself. They gave me a lot of creative control, especially for a new artist," she said. "Of course, there was some compromise, but amidst the compromise, it never strayed too far."

Standing in her kitchen, she still can't shake the pressure she's feeling ahead of the album's release. The stakes are higher, considering that the project rested on her vision.

"That title, 'major-label debut album,' is held at a much higher esteem than a free Internet project, as awesome as I think they are," Tinashe says. "I'm still very proud of those projects, and they were important to creating who I am as an artist, but this is just on a different level.

"I'm confident in the material. I just want to feel that it's well received."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-tinashe-aquarius-20141007-story.html