Mura Masa - Curve 1

For Mura Masa to describe this fourth, independently released full-length as “anti-narrative” perhaps says more about the boxes into which his magpie-like electronic pop has been put than ‘Curve 1’ as an album itself. Until now, any ‘narratives’ around the artist have largely ended up as ‘wunderkind super producer’ rather than thematic analyses of his records. But where past releases have been headlined by their guest appearances – ASAP Rocky, Charli xcx and Nao on his self-titled debut; Ellie Rowsell, Clairo and Georgia on 2020’s ‘RYC’; PinkPantheress, Lil Uzi Vert and Shygirl on 2022’s ‘Demon Time’ – the different voices heard throughout ‘Curve 1’ don’t take centre stage. Instead, skittish, hypnotic rhythms dominate, creating a fully coherent throughline via which deceptively deft hooks permeate. Take ‘Drugs’, for instance, where Daniela Latita’s repetitive vocal loses then gains meaning as the track continues; or ‘We Are Making Out’, where yeule’s voice acts as counterpoint to the almost industrial-meets-hyperpop scuzz of the song’s topline. Closer ‘FLY’, meanwhile, takes a sample from late-‘00s girlband Cherish’s 2008 single ‘Killa’ – a song which reached the giddy heights of Number 52 in the UK – and transforms it into a euphoric dancefloor filler. Best of the lot, meanwhile, is ‘SXC’, its French vocal hook of a level any former GCSE-level student should grasp (“Je me sens sexy / Et je ne sais pas pourquoi”), that’s both frivolous and fun – two words that sum up the record as a whole.