About

The last couple of years have seen Mura Masa translate tremendous ability and promise into a debut album which is at once playful, ambitious, and effortlessly accomplished. It's a record which looks in from the outside - across water, in fact - at a scope of subcultures, and measures the reality against what was promised by the lens of the Internet; arriving, in his own words, at "the confusion and chaos of being 20 and living in London for the first time". Allowing others into the Mura Masa world was a gradual process, but one which has paid off with a remarkable cast of collaborators: from A-Listers to cult heroes and emerging talent, but all Alex's vision of what pop music (and modern British culture) should look like in 2017.

However isolated your upbringing, messy your love life or intense your city, 'Mura Masa' suggests the importance of togetherness, and those endless possibilities to still connect. – Press release

“Mura Masa’s best moments arrive when he finds rejuvenating takes on old grooves. Take “NOTHING ELSE!,” a song written the day Prince died: Led by Tennessee transplant Jamie Lidell, it manages to channel both the Black Keys and Hercules and Love Affair. “Firefly” balances a finger-snap house beat with the feather-lite vocals of the East London R&B singer Nao. “helpline” pushes double-time drumming, with the faintest hint of classic punk, into sparkling future-garage territory. And on “Second 2 None,” Christine & the Queens' Héloïse Letissier is her exquisite ice-queen self, yet now over skittering drum ‘n’ bass beats. Coherent in spite of its range, Mura Masa never lets its jam-packed contents overshadow a vision that refuses to be boxed in.

It’s Damon Albarn’s willingness to let Crossan guide him, however, that makes for the most significant track on the record. Having his hero share vocals with him on the slow-paced, lovelorn “Blu” feels like a symbolic passing of the baton in the journey to a music without borders. The song embodies a melancholy that runs throughout Mura Masa—reflecting, perhaps, a sense of exhaustion from the challenges of being young and overwhelmed by the city. It’s a love song, but it’s also about the desire for communication and the need to be understood. Toward its close, a few bars of a cappella singing trail off into silence before the jumbled voices of the city rise in the distance. It sounds a lot like Crossan’s vision of home.” - Pitchfork

“Written to capture his feelings of moving to London from Guernsey, the whole album feels like you’re following Mura Masa as he throws himself into all the different subcultures the city has to offer. While this does mean the album often feels less like a Mura Masa album and more one simply curated by him, it’s so well curated it doesn’t really matter.

…it’s a solid and most importantly fun record by a star producer who's finally getting the attention he deserves. With an envious cast of characters on board, it feels like the best party everyone’s invited to.” – The Line of Best Fit

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