Grae

Moses Sumney evades definition as an act of duty: technicolour videos and monochrome clothes; Art Rock and Black Classical; blowing into Fashion Week from a small town in North Carolina; seemingly infinite collaborators, but only one staggering voice. A young life spent between Southern California and Accra, Ghana — not so much rootless as an epiphyte, an air plant. The scale is cinematic but the moves are precise deeds of art and stewardship. Sumney’s new, generous album, Grae, is an assertion that the undefinable still exists and dwelling in it is an act of resistance.

Grae expands upon the sonic universe built in Sumney’s critically acclaimed debut LP Aromanticism and subsequent Black In Deep Red EP. The songs on græ may be divergent, like the visceral, Smashing Pumpkins drama of “Virile” and the intoxicated, outro jazz of “Gagarin”. There is the kinky, ambiguous bop of “Cut Me” countered with the sweeping, amphitheatre ready “Bless Me”. But there is that voice, always unknowable and penetrating, threading these pieces together: a heavenly rasp, a whale call, Miles’ horn, a soulful snarl. It all works to create a paradox, keeping art and artist somewhere between any one sure thing — but surely something that demands your attention affixed and your breath bated.