BOY SODA Gifts Us 'SOULSTAR' His Debut Album

If this album were a painting, it would be modernistic and full of bright, bold, fun, colourful strokes. The paints would be oil, and the background on which to build linen.

Utterly suitable for the artist in question, rising neo-soul and R&B singer BOY SODA, who is a leading figure in a sub-genre, dubbed Gen-Z soul, to gift us his perspective on love through a kaleidoscope of emotions, experiences and sounds that kinetically move through the world with a heightened sensitivity on his debut album, SOULSTAR.

Relatable themes of self-esteem, love, reflection, heartbreak, friendships, parental trauma and healing, BOY SODA, it seems that he’s happy to drift through the album project rather than arrive at any realisation or epiphany at the end.

Released via Warner Music, SOULSTAR, seems to serve as its very own genre, where, like a port, other genres all go to meet before heading off in their own directions. Think Bryson Tiller, Trap Soul, and how that album defined a whole sound and generation of R&B lovers, forever establishing itself as a sub-space. SOULSTAR, despite being influenced by the traditional and contemporary, can’t help but feel forward-thinking.

The R&B artist, inspired by jazz, blues, neo soul, R&B and hip-hop, has created an expansive musical world through live instrumentation with the help of the blue mountains: a three-part horn section, string quartet, vocalists, live piano, drums, congos and lap steel guitar.

“R&B is such a wide-spanning category, and I think at the end of the spectrum is soul,” BOY SODA said. “it’s about emotion and it’s where I find emotion easiest.” 

“It feels like the beginning,” he says, “it’s about honesty and self-awareness and finding acceptance through all stages of love and grief.” 

The Australian-based artist and creative begins the 13-track project with ‘My Body’, searching for direction, examining masculinity in relation to mental health, but ultimately wanting a good time.

Moving into fan favourite ‘Lil Obsession’, Soda’s voice effortlessly captures the turbulent and reckless nature of infatuation. The blood rushing. The thrill. The fast-moving pace. And also, how fleeting it can truly be.

The urgency is transferred to the electrifying ‘Hit The Road!’, which boasts a dark bassline that nicely contrasts with Soda’s high-toned voice. The track is an homage to Ray Charles’ 1960 classic, as he sings about an old flame who’s in town.

‘Never the same’ has a more electronic-pop production. Whilst ‘A father’s heart’ unpacks a complicated relationship with a vulnerable transparency.

The D’Angelo-inspired ‘4K’ featuring Dean Brady, is a softly sung, honey-sweet harmonising neo soul cut that allows you to sink into the warm production, consisting of a trippy funky bass and tender vocals.

The lyrics, however, present a slightly more complicated reality. “When did this love lose control/stuck in the sand again?”, Dean Brady sings the bridge, conveying his discomfort and frustration as Soda lowers his voice to an emotive rumble before rapping smoothly about the breakup.

Borrowing jazz elements, urgent, desperate, ‘Blink Twice’ is a return of love as the answer when confronted with the end of the world. Wind instruments provide an outer space and intergalactic feel when combined with the smouldering saxophone rifts, taking you away to another world. “So let’s kiss, baby, it might be the final moon”, he sings, as he zeros in on the present, wanting to lose himself in the moment, and afraid it might not come around again “, the last that we’ll ever see and the first of many to bloom.”

And enjoying this fashioned intimacy, the image blooms of two people closer- and we, the listeners, are intruding on the precious moment – as the small world shrinks and cosily folds in on itself to his gentle urging.

“There was this communal feeling that we were all doing something really incredible and special,” says BOY SODA, speaking about the musicality of the debut album, and also the creative process.

A trait that makes it unique is the instrumentation. He admits that he felt “over-indulgent being able to have that many live instruments.

"I’m very aware of the rarity", BOY SODA remarks, "and the privilege to be able to make that album. But hey, who better than to call on your talented mates to make something special happen.”

Taken by Satoru Takamatsu

And that's why gentle and light-hearted, strummed guitar chords and a breathless approach feel as natural as breathing on, ‘Good Morning’, a nice change of pace as he greets his love interest after spending a night together. Showing his thoughtfulness and attentiveness.

‘PM’ has more of an upbeat, brash hip-hop twist to it, whilst the breaks immediately slowed on the Anderson.Paak inspired ‘Slippery’.

Now, definitely at the most experimental section of the album, Soda conjures a pop-glazed indie rock concoction, which will cater to a younger audience on ‘Find A Way’.

He also isn’t in a rush for his debut to end yet, a slow jam that wouldn’t be out of place in the 70s, ‘Selfish’ feels list the last dance in one of your favourite films where the protagonist gets the girl. Earnest again, in that way that has endeared him to us, he pleads: “Just a little longer, if you don’t mind holding on for a minute.”

Ending with the stripped-back ‘Platonic & Sacred’, it seems like Soda’s mourning the end; he’s raw, remembering memories with a bittersweet melancholy, and it brings that Shakespeare quote to mind, how it’s better to have loved than not lived at all. His performance here has a quiet, heartbreaking quality, singing carefully amongst flute, and the violin strings as if he is holding a jug of water that, despite his efforts, overflows. With ‘Platonic & Sacred’, there is a hope for the future, for them, and an understatement regarding the miracle of love.

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