Sam Akpro - Evenfall
On his debut album, Sam Akpro paints a lifelike, if at times incomplete, landscape of his South London experience.
Take a walk down Rye Lane and you’ll find an eclectic collection of characters. Peckham’s cultural hub is home to your natural wine-drinking, small plate-eating twenty-somethings who brush shoulders with Caribbean aunties chatting at the barber shop, all while you can feel the rumble of the train or occasionally hear the distant call of a sound system in a back garden. Sam Akpro, a through and through South Londoner, has built himself a reputation of capturing the transient emotions that arise from these moments, bottling them up with restless drums and driving bass before unleashing them with lyrical clarity. On his debut album Evenfall, he proves he hasn’t lost his touch.
One of the first instruments Akpro remembers playing is the drums, and anyone who has spent any time with his music would have no problem believing this. His technique is stellar; so confident that it so often forms the backbone of his tracks, with the rest of the instrumentation dancing around it. With his long-time collaborator Shrink, they jump around genres with the drumsticks, going from hazy psych, ska-inspired beats in ‘I Can’t See The Sun’, to jazzier syncopated rhythms in ‘City Sleeps’, which also employs some jagged strings to great effect. On the former, Akpro combines the percussion with wailing, distorted guitars and groovy bass to force a trance. With sultry saxophone runs thrown in, Akpro creates a well-balanced portrait of a late night. Instrumental interlude ‘Baka’ is ambitious, with some truly original sampling of a helicopter whir mixed in with steely, strummed guitars and operatic choral vocals, even employing synths that replicate that warning tone when someone steals a Lime bike. It can feel a little aimless, but Akpro dutifully ties it together well and injects it with an unpredictable, improvisational energy; one that draws distinct contrasts between light and dark.
The fluence in restraint makes for an engaging listen, something that he demonstrates well on ‘Gone West’, where the drums and bass playfully assert themselves then drop off, complimenting Akpro’s refrain: “Down in the town, in the crowd I’m restless”. All of this means that when he wants to push the energy up, Akpro adeptly weaves together both familiar hooks and unknown samples to create intricate layers of sound. ‘Tunnel Vision’, a highlight on the record, perfectly encapsulates all of Akpro’s best abilities as an artist: a fidgety snare-heavy beat, bold bass lines, mechanical synth pads, and Akpro’s own vocal versatility amount to a track that is endlessly listenable. Perhaps most strikingly throughout the album, bass and drums are always mixed up, while the rest of the instrumentation is distorted and ultimately falls on top. A decision that requires getting used to, but hypnotises you into a submissive state as the haze washes over you.
Lyrically, the record ponders questions of urban isolation and alienation, mirroring its brooding production choices. His poetic sensibility is understated - Akpro doesn’t really actually say all that much - but the precisely chosen words land their punches with force. ‘Death By Entertainment’, an early single with an uneasy marriage of delicate tones and the trademark domineering, drony bass, has Akpro musing on the struggle of contemporary mundanity, closing with: “Woke up just to wake up again/I’m burning out, still play the game”. The snare embellishments on this cut near the back end only serve to drum up the propulsion and frustration.
With his knack for pulling back, it unfortunately leaves a few songs on the record sounding a little empty and repetitive. ‘Chicago Town’ culminates in a quiet revelation in its lyrics, but even at a shorter runtime the instrumentation isn’t as dynamic as the others, even with bongos piercing the blur of the distortion and effects. Title track ‘Evenfall’ feels somewhat lacking in its twangy guitar plucks which sound a bit lost. However, the breakdown compensates for this, presenting a spellbinding juxtaposition between fluid, casual synths and bass notes to provide a welcome breath of air that Akpro is fluent at delivering; often picking apart layers and melodies only to bring them back with more power. None of the weak points are detrimental, but there’s a version of this record that would feel more complete if only some sonic motifs were dragged and dropped around to other tracks.
More than anything else, Evenfall feels true to Akpro and his unique sensibilities. Drums and bass take centre stage, guiding each track from beginning to end and providing an incomparably strong safety net for everything else he tries. It’s drenched throughout in a grayscale malaise, effortless at generating its singular energy. A little like a midnight bike journey through London, it can be a little tedious, and maybe not entirely satiating, but Evenfall is so assured and assertive in its identity while being a chameleon of genres that its flaws are easy to forgive.