No Compromise, No Bullshit: How Genesis Owusu Sculpted His Incredible Debut Album Once you scrape all the glitter off and you really listen to it, you hear what it s really about.
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Live music became a distant memory in the holding pattern that was 2020 tours were scuttled, and festivals that usually define the Australian summer disappeared from the calendar. That stasis reached over into records too, as artists and labels put albums on ice in the hopes of salvaging their live shows.
Loud And Quiet
It’s early days yet, but
Smiling With No Teeth might be the best debut album of the year. The first full-length from Canberra’s Genesis Owusu,
Smiling… is a thrilling introduction.
Wildly ambitious in scope, there are moments where it snaps into industrial grooves worthy of Trent Reznor, and others where Owusu transforms into an Aussie D’Angelo. His collaboration with Kirin J Callinan, ‘Drown’, sounds like King Gizzard with Bruce Springsteen writing the hooks.
Across the record, the Ghanaian-born artist maintains the air of a bandleader, charismatically guiding listeners and musicians alike through fluid changes in style and genre. On some tracks he sings, on others he raps. Elsewhere, he delivers self-aware passages of spoken word, punctuating his verses on ‘Waitin On Ya’, for example, with gems like,