It is commonly believed that faith is the prerogative of temples. But for Cole Lumpkin it is found elsewhere: “Faith is about trusting yourself. In what you love and what you seek to be. In how intensely you adventure on the path of your life.” Under conditions of progress, the sacred moves onto monitor screens – a shimmering row of audio plugins forms the music he lives for.
“Having something to believe in is such a wonderful thing,” says the musician. The intensity with which the musician explores his life has become the central theme of his second album “HELIX “- an album that has compressed a year of upheavals into a little more than nineteen minutes of sound. Five months of painstaking work and the album was ready, agree, the time is not long. The author had no time for doubts: a breakup, depression, a struggle with sexuality, burnout on tour – what better material for an album. Lumpkin works alone – he writes, produces, plays the instruments. In working on “HELIX” he avoids AI textures, and this decision, it seems to me, is ethical: music must be handmade, even if the hands are trembling.
But it is time to go not through associations and impressions but through specific tracks. The title first track “HELIX” is a kind of introductory overture before the beginning of the performance. The final chord of the track immediately passes into “Where I Left Me” – the wide sound of the synthesizers reveals a good dynamic range and a confident purity of the elements of the acoustic picture. Each sound is tuned individually, and because of this the track sounds more holistic. Sometimes individual parts come forward and solo, sometimes everything merges into a single groove that holds the instrumental sections together in the middle of the track, then the melody begins to fall apart into fragments, like a memory that loses details. Cole Lumpkin generously bestows full verses and bridges, and in the instrumentals shows development, the music blurs the boundaries between fact and memory.
Many critics single out most of all on the album the track “90 Degrees“, I cannot but agree (although my favorite is a little further) – the smooth rhythm of the track slides between the warmth of hopecore, indie textures, funky pop grooves and R&B soul, sounding like self-acceptance with a bass line. The timbres are chosen with jeweler-like precision, there is musical completeness.
On each track Lumpkin’s voice sounds with new qualities. For example, in “Bamboozled By Love” it is sharp, I would say bold; it appears fragmentarily, stretched to an instrumental state. The “torn” guitar parts are honed and closer to the middle accelerate their rhythm and go on the attack. There is a peculiar irony in the title, but the music is devoid of cynicism. It sounds cool, I advise listening on repeat. Love as an illusion: you know that it is all deception, but you cannot discern the mechanics of the trick.
The restless synthesizer in “The Crystal Island” with a heavy bass and contrasting cinematic strings builds a sound image of isolation. The arpeggios are fragile, the pads transparent and cold. The island as a metaphor of separateness, the crystal as a metaphor of fragility. The percussion enters carefully, with a fear of destroying the structure. In this musical space beauty and loneliness are inseparable.
The main success on the album (my favorite) on the album I consider the track “Softer” – a very soft and restrained pop with a catchy chorus. Listening to this song, one can allow oneself to be more melancholic, while in solitude bright, sometimes not always pleasant moments from life and worries about the future are recalled. An introspective movement under perfect instrumental sections built on a practically orchestral counterpoint but played electronically. Coming from afar – insinuating and beautiful, architecturally assembling into a single whole – and just as beautifully spreading the sounds into nowhere, into silence, into a pause of reflection. “Softer” does exactly what it promises. The textures soften, the corners are smoothed, the pressure subsides. I listen on repeat and do not get tired. The final “Elevate” is the triumphant conclusion of the album, although Lumpkin avoids loud gestures. The rise in mood is imperceptible. The energy accumulates gradually, layer by layer, the synthesizer–keyboard side of things is lush and inventive, the vocal merges with the backing vocal, no additional remarks are needed here. The track ends smoothly, without a “bold full stop”, possibly because the real thing happens already beyond the music, in life, which continues after the last note.
Cole Lumpkin is one of those artists whom you want to support because they strengthen faith in modern pop music. Against the background of disposable beats that are released like from a conveyor belt, his music looks refined but without a hint of pretentiousness. Lumpkin trusts the process – his instruments, his hands, and who he becomes in each new turn of the spiral. The album “HELIX” is proof that faith is the readiness to go on working when nothing is guaranteed. A million lights burn every night. Every night they have to be lit anew.
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