For nearly six years now, producer and singer-songwriter Marcus Brown has been trying to escape his (working) life through his project Nourished By Time. But this is not about escapism in the conventional sense – as already made clear on his acclaimed debut Erotic Probiotic 2, and once again on The Passionate Ones. Brown merges sociopolitical themes such as existential dread, disillusionment, and the darker sides of the American Dream with deeply personal glimpses into his contradictory inner world.
The sound draws from 80s dream pop, alternative R&B, electro-funk, deep house, club music, and hip-hop – as hybrid as the scene in his hometown Baltimore, from which Nourished By Time continues to draw inspiration. The result is a skewed 1980s aesthetic that leans consciously on retro elements but deliberately avoids nostalgia.
As genre-blind as Dean Blunt, as enigmatic as Yves Tumor, and at times crooning like a homerecording Frank Ocean – Nourished By Time achieves a style on The Passionate Ones that feels both individual and current. Perhaps this is what the soundtrack to the threshold between postmodernity and metamodernism sounds like.
