Boots, Aquaria - album review

Rapper/singer/producer Jordan Asher, aka Boots, first came to attention when he produced the bulk of Beyoncé’s self-titled fifth album.

Since then, he’s worked with the likes of FKA twigs and Run The Jewels.

The influence of Run The Jewels’ production genius El-P is evident throughout Aquaria, in the soundscapes of tracks like “Brooklyn Gamma” and “C.U.R.E.”, with their clanking industrial beats, itchy hi-hats, and scrawling squalls of bricolaged noise which spread like bruises through the songs, as Boots essays the stream-of-consciousness raps that leave one baffled but intrigued.

“UFOs in the USA, lipstick circumcision, get the car keys” runs one such segment, a mystery even down to how it’s punctuated.

But the sinister twitch and shuffle of “Bombs Away” and “I Run Roulette” confirms that, however far out Boots takes things, he’s always in the vicinity of pop. One for the future.