© 2024 WFAE
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Octavian Takes Off With 'SPACEMAN' Mixtape

Octavian's latest mixtape SPACEMAN is available now.
Will Robson Scott
/
Courtesy of the artist
Octavian's latest mixtape SPACEMAN is available now.

Octavian is taking off. Nearly a year after the woozy and infectious unpredictability of " Party Here" perked ears and raised his profile, the U.K. artist has shared his latest mixtape SPACEMAN, out now via Black Butter.

The 14-track mixtape, his official followup to 2017's Essie World, doesn't feature "Party Here," " Hands" or his recent collaboration with Mura Masa, " Move Me." But it does play hopscotch with trance, alternative R&B and hip-hop, and boasts plenty of flute-fluttering production, most of which was composed by Octavian himself and producer Elevated. It's also got short, stream-of-conscious musings from Octavian as well as fellow U.K. artists Krimbo, A2, Suspect and Swift.

"My risk? Naw, I'll beat you in the race / And you be takin' my place. Revenge, revenge)" Octavian raps on "Revenge," delivering the lines with a combative, raucous energy that would be right at home as an opener for a Travis Scott tour. "I just be myself, watch no other man / My jewels jingle like do the running man / Tunnel vision on these rubber bands," he preens on "This Is My World."

Whether singing, spitting to chatting on record, there's something intriguing about Octavian — that genre-hopping, sonic je ne sais quoi that has yet to reach its limits.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Sidney Madden is a reporter and editor for NPR Music. As someone who always gravitated towards the artforms of music, prose and dance to communicate, Madden entered the world of music journalism as a means to authentically marry her passions and platform marginalized voices who do the same.