‘Thanks To You,’ featuring Rihanna and Mary J Blige songwriter Sam Dew on vocals, is a gorgeous slice of left-field pop that sounds like Yazoo meets Timberlake, while ‘Into The Fire’, a kaleidoscopic slow jam that draws on Miguel, Prince and 80s soul in a play for the summer charts is ridiculously catchy without veering into the realm of kitsch. And while producer albums tend to be an exercise in self-indulgent point-proving (hiya, Mark Ronson, Timberland), the man his mother knows as Michael Volpe has actually created a solid collection that, significantly, sounds like an album, cleverly straddling pop and hip-hop while weaving a coherent thread. Having helped pioneer yet another micro-genre in the form of ‘cloud rap’ (it’s rap but a bit more ethereal – think chillwave with rhymes, if you remember chillwave) with his pals A$AP Rocky and Lil B, he’s chosen 2016 to stride confidently out from the shadows.
Clams Casino, like a host of other high-profile rap and hip-hop producers (BOOTS and Kaytranada being recent cases in point), finds himself wanting to get out from behind the controls and into the limelight.
