Crafting concepts that directly correlate with one’s music is a tried and true facet of this very artform — one that has obviously seen further and further developments as time moves forward. The idea of a corresponding “concept” has become something of an all-encompassing, yet seemingly vague and indefinite musical aspect now in our modern age.
That does not mean the idea has lost its luster by any stretch of the imagination; not one single artist is exemplifying how to convey a concept in a modern musical sense better than Bladee, one of this millennium’s most daring and now-iconic artists. The Drain Gang purveyor has made a living out of taking the most indiscreet factors of such genres as EDM, hip-hop, and pop – both strictly musically and conceptually alike – and acting on them in an entirely digestible and appealing manner. That notion has prompted his now-untouchable place in the music world today where he is sitting comfortably.
Closing the door on an incredibly busy 2020 is his collaborative album with noted EDM masterclass producer Mechatok entitled Good Luck — the third of his project-based endeavors this year following Exeter and 333. Both of those albums hammered-in on thematically conceptual approaches that worked to equally elevate the music as much as they gave context to it, and this sentiment rings ever-so-vividly on Good Luck as well.
It is no secret that through all the mystique that this pairing provides throughout the music itself is indeed something of a defining impression that they wanted to communicate from the outset. These two coming together meant more than just the effectively superb working relationship that anyone could have guessed to be the case; they wanted to take this “two-sided relationship” and translate it in a musical sense through and through.
And that they did via the evenly-distributed 8-track runtime that this album boasts — “evenly-distributed” in the sense that this album represents an even duality from every single angle it possibly could — thus harkening back on that aforementioned concept. For just as many grooving, bouncing, and emphatically delivered tracks like “Rainbow,” “God,” and “Into One,” there are tracks that represent a far more solemn and downbeat approach like the intro track, “You,” and “Grace.” This duly-layered approach manifests itself from these sonic aspects first and then spreads itself out within each pocket of this jam-packed project in its entirety.
The all-too-intriguing lyrical motifs presented by Bladee himself certainly follow this approach without question, as his words work to ideally match whatever feeling that Mechatok’s dynamic production cues present in a given moment. Beyond what his lyrics may mean on a moving scale as they do here, the production work by itself tells the album’s story just as well based on how exactly “dynamic” it truly is. Mechotok does an incredible job at recognizing what needed to be done here and running with it by tailoring each slick and shining instrumental to embody an equal amount of energy and solemn atmosphere within the finished product.
What these two came to represent with this project was a pairing that meant so much more than what the music alone could ever spell out. Though their respective statuses as musicians is and forever will be linked, these two made sure to expertly convey the fact that they are two acts who have chemistry beyond what their places could ever represent. They did so by crafting together one of the year’s best conceptual projects, and it remains to be seen what other magic these two could come through with moving forward.