Album Of The Week: Nick Hakim I Can See

Theoretically, Nick Hakim makes soul music, but it’s more like visiting spirit music. The Queens-based polymath, a trusted collaborator for figures as disparate as Adrianne Lenker and Lil Yachty, can be heard on many kinds of records. But he may be doing his finest work in his own catalog, crafting spectral R&B songs with sound design so immaculate it becomes an instrument unto itself.I Can See, out Friday, is Hakim's first album in four years, but some of its material dates back even further, to before the release of 2022's Cometa. He spent half a decade perfecting these tracks, developing studio recordings that retain the intimacy of their initial bedroom demos. Working with a group of longtime collaborators, he summons subtle grooves as if from the ether and blurs them into a textured mirage. Even the electronic beats merge into a unified whole, a sound that somehow evokes holograms and dusty old vinyl all at once. The resulting recordings are beautiful and haunting, an evolution of the ghostly R&B throwbacks heard on How To Dress Well's earliest records. If birds in the trap sing McKnight, the ones who've passed on to the afterlife sing Hakim.Hakim co-produced I Can See with Andrew Sarlo, who mixed Cometa and has been involved with some of the best indie-adjacent music of the past decade. Sarlo helped artists like Dijon and Bon Iver use the studio as an instrument to reinvent their music. Sonically, I Can See represents a similar quantum leap. But rather than the deconstructed, futuristic sounds heard on albums like Baby and i,i, these tracks achieve a celestial organic feel, the sound of the utterly natural converging with the supernatural. Or maybe they're just vividly depicting what it's like to immerse yourself in a treasured past, longing for what's lost. "It all comes back/ In a mist/ Then it fades away like before," Hakim sings on the opening title track, pushing his voice up to a delicate falsetto that flutters with the agility of prime Michael Jackson.Though the lineup adjusts slightly from song to song, Hakim mostly leans on the same core unit throughout: Vishal Nayak and Abe Rounds on drums and percussion, Joe Harrison and Dylan Day on guitars, Kyle Miles on bass. Occasionally, Jake Sherman sits in on piano and organ, though Hakim himself often handles piano, synth, and MPC duties in addition to gracing the tracks with his gentle, virtuosic vocals. The credits are speckled with fun surprises, some of which make perfect sense, like Moses Sumney and June McDoom lending vocals to the grainy, guitar-driven "The Reason." Others play against type, like a pair of songwriting credits for Julian Pratt from the experimental hardcore band Show Me The Body, including one that places Pratt's name alongside Arto Lindsay.Given the number of locations they recorded in — the storied Texas outpost Sonic Ranch, various lavish NYC facilities, a couple home studios — the aesthetic uniformity across these tracks is remarkable. Cometa was woozy, whispery, and smooth, but its songs were rendered in impeccable clarity. These tracks sound like they were captured in an old home, from the other side of a room inhabited by some divine presence. Inadvertently or purposefully, Hakim's own lyrics convey the experience well: "Love our late night noise parade/ The source feels far away/ And it shifts like soft wet clay/ But always stays the same."At least one song, "Real Here Now," literally alludes to convening with loved ones who've passed away. "My sister, she’s been learning magic/ She claims, she talks to grandpa in the attic," Hakim intones, the music floating weightlessly, like a spirit adrift. But even there, the specter haunting our narrator is more likely an old flame. "I hear laughing, and it sounded just like you," he continues. "I hear singing, that song you always love to do." Hakim wrote these songs while coping with "the end of a record deal and a long-term relationship." As such, they're possessed by a profound mournfulness. He sounds like he's moving through a fog of memory and emotion, transmuting heavy burdens into songs as light as air.Those wandering a similar path may find commiseration in Hakim's flickering laments. But for all its sorrow, I Can See is not a depressing listen. Hakim breathes soothing grace into these tracks. His dark nights of the soul might render you a puddle, but they're just as likely to lead you into a transcendent calm. Personally, I've spent countless hours marveling at Hakim's achievements here, understanding what he means when he sings, "My ears can't believe what they're seeing."I Can See is out 7/24 via Earseed. Pre-order it here.Other albums of note out this week:Charli XCX's Music, Fashion, FilmThe Strokes' Reality AwaitsRico Nasty's RXSam And Louise Sullivan's Love & DevotionIAN SWEET's ShiverstruckzayALLCAPS' My Uncle Told Me Some Real Ass Shit On The Phone YesterdayJosaleigh Pollett’s In The Garden, By The WeedsTyla's A*PopAlex Cameron's Late To SetREZN's Cycles In The Infinite DreamPunch Brothers' The Unsung Adventures Of Punch BrothersLockstep's I Know What I SawLittle Gold's Public Dogkelz's A Sweet PasserbyCEL RAY's CEL RAYZERLong Odds' The Dry LandShania Twain's Little Miss TwainWillow's The ThreadJoudy's Permanent MaintenanceBudjerah's GentlemanRobyn Hitchcock's The ConfuserTrophy Wife's PatheticThe Revivalists' Get It HonestBody Type's TallyBaby Queen's I Hope You Don’t Remember MeFoodman's HIKARIGASASHIKOMUSoda Gumball's Super Honey Teaspoon!Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown's A Supreme BlueKirk Barley's ArcChenayder's OutdatedDenise Julia's LOVE AGAIN EPDorio's Agent Friday & The Perfect Angelgirlsweetvoiced's LovesweetCharles Lloyd's Sangam & Friendsatmos bloom's EverythingnessBlue States' Where The Fades MeetLegado 7's LEGENDARIOKenyon Dixon's Ego Ruins EverythingXELTA's B.D.S.M. 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