Mere Notilde - Now That I Have You ALBUM REVIEW

 

9.2/10

Infectious and full of heart, Mere Notilde's latest will leave you wanting more.

Hello everyone - today we have a brand new future funk review - that being on "Now That I Have You", from Mere Notilde.

Mere Notilde is a future funk artist from Boston - and while they started with a very experimental, almost metal-sounding style on their first LP, "Bird" - they've since fully embraced the sounds of future funk and french house, releasing projects like Solanin and Sample Heaven.

This brings us to 2021, where they've released their fifth album. With three acclaimed singles leading the way, this release was building up to be something big - and big it was, as this is probably my favourite vaporwave release so far in 2021.

Pretty much everything on this album sounds crisp and full of life - with amazing, groovy sample choices and impeccable mixing and mastering, pretty much everything here is top quality future funk, and it's still able to hold on to the nostalgic and airy feeling that got the genre to where it is today.

The album starts off with the title track, which is my least favourite track here. I wouldn't necessarily call it bad, in fact the main melody is pretty nice. But I'm not sure if this really fits the style of the rest of the album. It has these dreamy, sort of space-y chords with grand hard-hitting guitars - but it doesn't really stand out all too much for me, mainly because it's radically different from the rest of the album.

"Sweet Baby!" is the most well-known track here, and not only does it have the most future funk song title I've ever heard, it's also just a great song. An amazing sample choice, chopped and modified to perfection. The main chorus here is so catchy, and it'll probably get stuck in your head for days.

The next few tracks manage to be extremely consistent and hard-hitting. Mere really shows off some of their influence from artists like ev.exi on the track "Unlimited", which starts off with these AMAZING, chopped up piano chords - it sounds like someone punching a piano, but it actually sounds good - it continues on with great, catchy sample, backed up with some dreamy synth pads that make it EASILY one of my favourites here.

After the track "Mono" the album starts getting a bit more laid-back. Here we have "Break", my personal favourite song here. This song is beautiful. It starts off with a lovely guitar section, before throwing you into a sweet and groovy future funk banger. The bassline here is one of the catchiest things I've ever heard, the entire thing is extremely well-mixed, and it's just an amazing track. The best song here for me, for sure.

The closing track here, "Soldissimo" is phenomenal as well and wraps up the album perfectly. Beautiful strings on this one, and phenomenal sampling. It's a grand and fantastic way to end this... masterpiece of an album.

"Now That I Have You" is good! Great, even. These kinds of albums don't come along everyday - I think this is an amazing record, and there's hardly any songs here I dislike. Insanely consistent quality, my main complaint is that I would have loved to see this be expanded upon. This thing is really short at 23 minutes. Needless to say though, I'm definitely excited to see what Mere comes up with next. Give this one a listen.

9.2/10

Fav Tracks: Sweet Baby!, Unlimited, Mono, Break, Cool Song, Soldissimo

Least Fav Track: Now That I Have You