New Music – The Twenty-Two Song Saga

Animals Have Feelings by Samiyam pushes the modern boundaries of the mostly instrumental album. It brings spacious sounds and the use of different era’s sounds to paint the wild journey that is the framework of Animals Have Feelings. Samiyam brings life to the already progressing experimental genre of hip-hop and is a smooth addition into an instrumentalist lover’s collection.

Samiyam is an artist that first caught my attention for his work with Earl Sweatshirt on “Quest/Power,” which was a double track released by two different producers. “Quest” was the beat produced by Samiyam and the other half “Power” was produced by Budgie. Earl and Samiyam would work again as Earl would be featured on Animals Have Feelings with a verse on the song “Mirror” that Earl previously released. Now we are left to hear the rest of Samiyam’s creation as Animals Have Feelings seamlessly blends old and new, using outstanding transitions from song to song, track to track.

The best thing about this album is the combination of 70’s era sounding bass-lines, the 80’s era sounding science fiction background noises, and the hardcore synth work that lays the ground plan for most of the tracks. Every track is unique and features not the most elaborate production, but layered production and keeps a strong level of details which leads to a new discovery after each listen.

There are no break-neck speed songs, the tracks here are on an ambiance level, they are drawn out, and have more of a chilled vibe. I personally like this approach as there are tracks that sound more like lo-fi hip-hop and this is most definitely an experimental record. Samiyam seemed to have total creative control and he used it to his full abilities.

Animals Have Feelings isn’t primarily an instrumental album either, it features Action Bronson, Jerimiah Jae, Earl Sweatshirt and Oliver the 2^nd. Every single verse on this record is outstanding and the production behind them match perfectly. I was surprised to see that Jeremiah Jae and Oliver the 2^nd had the strongest track on this project overall. I really had no idea who these two were before listening to Animals Have Feelings, but I totally want to hear more from what they have to offer.

Samiyam’s Animals Have Feelings has some great production, but unfortunately there are some songs that are hit or miss, I personally liked the album but some of the tracks do go on for longer than they should have. Overall the album is a little under an hour and with the 22 song track list it seems to be longer than it actually is.

I do think Animals Have Feelings is a great addition and it is most definitely an album that should be listened to in complete darkness so you can envision the space it portrays. Animals Have Friends is a spaced out, and chilled out journey from start to finish.