The second solo album from drummer/falsetto-vocalist Aaron Frazer, released June 28, 2024 on Dead Oceans. Where his Dan Auerbach-produced debut leaned hard into vintage Memphis-soul fidelity, Into the Blue trades the analog-purist setting for something more modern and elastic. Frazer co-produced with Grammy-winning crate-digger Alex Goose (Freddie Gibbs, Madlib, Brockhampton), and the result threads soul through psychedelia, spaghetti-western strings, gospel, disco, and hip-hop beats.
The album was written after Frazer made a cross-country move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and a lot of the record sits in that emotional weather — grief, loneliness, leaving one life and figuring out the next one. His Durand Jones & The Indications bandmates remain his rhythm-section foundation, but the LA setting opens the palette wide.
Cool stuff:
- Co-produced by Alex Goose, the producer behind Freddie Gibbs's Bandana and Brockhampton's later records — a hip-hop guy bringing crate-dig sensibilities to a soul album
- Frazer plays drums and sings in his trademark falsetto — a combination almost no one in modern soul does, and one he developed over years with Durand Jones & The Indications on Colemine and Dead Oceans
- Written after a move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, with the geographic shift baked into the record's mood and palette
- "Thinking of You" is built on an arrangement directly inspired by Harlem soul trio Black Ivory, with strings layered over a bed of swooning harmonies
- The album was released across multiple limited-edition color vinyl variants, including a Japan-only teal "Wave" pressing with OBI strip
Spin it for: modern psychedelic soul with a falsetto front man, hip-hop production muscle, and arrangements that wander far past the genre's vintage-soul comfort zone.
Standouts: "Thinking of You" · "Payback" · "Time Will Tell" · "Out of Luck"
Sources: Dead Oceans · Billboard · The Fire Note review · Bandcamp · Glide Magazine