Toon Time Raw!
marked
Jerry Paper
's transition from an awkward, semi-ironic bedroom pop musician to an accomplished conceptual artist with a smooth, expressive voice and surrealist, thought-provoking lyrics. Trading their garish MIDI instrumentation for a proper backing band (namely
BadBadNotGood
, performing incognito as
Easy Feelings Unlimited
) proved to be a wise move that couldn't have come soon enough.
Like a Baby
is
Paper
's first album for
Stones Throw
and was co-produced by
BBNG
's
Matty Tavares
, with guest backing vocals and instrumentation from
Weyes Blood
,
Charlotte Day Wilson
, and
Mild High Club
Alex Brettin
. The songs are easygoing and funky, with bubbly keyboards and creamy vocals that melt into arrangements seemingly designed to distract the listener from paying attention to the lyrics, which express the anxiety of living in modern society. Over the slow, stiff funk of "Did I Buy It?,"
states that apocalypse was imminent from the beginning before asking "Did I buy it, or was it sold to me?," and they further ponder their impulses to spend on songs like "Commercial Break" and "My God." The album ends with "More Bad News," a subdued acoustic strummer about constantly attempting to escape the endless barrage of media ("I left my phone at home, it feels healthier").
still seems like an alien trapped in a human body, doing their best to blend in with a society they have trouble understanding. They're closer to being more normal than ever, but somehow that makes them seem even stranger. ~ Paul Simpson