Ubiquity
2006
Living With...
About This Album
To judge strictly from the album artwork, living with Philip Owusu and Robin Hannibal (who, if you want to get technical, actually live across the street from one another, in Copenhagen's poly-ethnic Nørrebro neighborhood) would involve a lot of lounging around, eating spaghetti in front of the TV in an apartment cluttered with dirty clothes, blank CDs, musical instruments, and greasy pizza boxes. The music on Living With... isn't anywhere near that slovenly -- in fact, it's quite meticulous; artfully arranged and layered with crisp, inventive production -- but it would be ideally suited to such a laid-back, lazily indulgent lifestyle. The tempo rarely rises above a genial amble as electronically tweaked R&B grooves, twitchy but languorous, stretch on into the five- to six-minute range, and even those that don't seem like they should (indeed, the album feels longer than its relatively concise one-hour length). It's good stuff, inspired even, as urban-inflected downtempo music goes -- certainly several notches hipper than your average mass-market chillout release -- but the first half of the album, in particular, tends to drag on one's attention, in spite of unconventional production touches, Owusu's capable neo-soul vocal stylings (he recalls a less strained Jamie Lidell), and intriguingly oblique lyrics if you can be bothered to pay attention (an exception, and a highlight, is the would-be baby-making slow jam "A Million Babies," with the admission "I'm really too drunk tonight to try").
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,13 and 14)

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