I wanted to stay away from a "producer" album. I always thought that was really shit, really boring, and really safe. I didn't want it to be a series of songs that didn't make a placement with somebody else and now I'm getting features on the whole thing. I didn't want to sell it on its features. I basically made a bunch of rules for myself, then I set out and started experimenting.
—Vegyn on his methodology while creating Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds.[1]
Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds is the debut studio album by British electronic artist Vegyn. Released on 8 November 2019, it received positive reviews from critics.
Background
Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds came as a sharp contrast to Vegyn's previous release, Text While Driving If You Want To Meet God!. That project was a mixtape mainly intended to put much of his unfinished, throwaway tracks to use, with Vegyn stating that "It was just sitting on my computer. I could let it rot in the digital coffin, or I could kind of just like let it live as is".[2]Only Diamonds was intended to be a more focused affair, centred around a richer collection of ideas.
The album was developed from a set of initial ideas across 2-3 weeks, and polished over the course of about six months.[3] A significant amount of the album was recorded over three or four weeks in a friend's studio in Los Angeles, usually in the middle of the night.[1]
Composition and style
Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds consists primarily of . It is largely instrumental, as Vegyn wanted to avoid being overly reliant on guest vocals.[1] There are only three credited features on the album – "Nauseous / Devilfish" features American rapper JPEGMafia, "I Don't Owe U NYthing" features British artist Jeshi, and "You Owe Me" includes a verse by French rapper Retro X. There are several other artists who appear on the album uncredited; rapper Freddie Gibbs contributed vocals to "Fire Like Tyndall",[4] and Owen Pallet, professionally known as Final Fantasy, provided strings on several tracks.[1]
Two tracks from the album were released to YouTube prior to its announcement, with accompanying music videos. On 1 August 2019, both Cowboy ALLStar and Blue Verb were uploaded.[5][6] All music videos released alongside the album feature people dancing in public spaces.
The album was officially announced on 25 September 2019, at the same time as the release of its lead single, "Nauseous / Devilfish" featuring rapper JPEGMafia.[7][8] The same day, a music video for the song was released to YouTube.[9]
In the lead-up to the album's release, music videos for It's Nice To Be Alive and Debold were released, on 17 October and 8 November respectively.[10][11]
In a review for Paste, Harry Todd compared the album to Frank Ocean's albums Endless (2016) and Blonde (2016), both of which featured Vegyn as a producer. He wrote that "like both, the album revels in immaculately juxtaposed textures".[13] Hunter Reed for the Daily Emerald said of the album "There are hardly any low points, and its variance in instrumentation, samples and mood have depth and space for multiple listens".[4] Joe Goggins of Crack gave the album a score of 8 out of 10, comparing it favourably to Vegyn's previous project: "Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds is an altogether more refined affair, underpinned by a quickly-established sonic palette that encompasses woozy synths, scratchy percussion and field recordings".[14]
Track Listing
All tracks are produced by Vegyn unless otherwise noted. Credits adapted from Tidal.[15]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
