Forget

He strikes a different pose on Forget, planting mostly solo piano songs in an orb of bare, sensitive melancholy. At its best, as on the title track, Blumberg shows he has an ear for a big ballad, cutting a tender and compelling figure backed by a sparse, percussive piano. Rather than telling a story, Blumberg uses disconnected snatches like “I’ll be natural” and “She can’t forget me now” to evoke the feeling of trying to recall a faded memory. The song ends up feeling bigger than its minimal parts, capturing a particular emotion and letting it hang in the air for a few minutes.

The problem in the context of the rest of the record is that the particular mood Blumberg captures so well on “Forget”, or “Windows” later on, is repeated over and over on the record and with very little extra instrumentation to hide behind– save a few electronic touches on “Waiting for the Car” and “New Home”– the record becomes a bit of a drag. The slightly concealed narratives don’t help either; with no big lyrical gut punches the emotional heft feels a bit too vague to really invest yourself in. The 10+ minutes of closing track “Those Are the Senses” epitomizes this, starting with a particularly cloying, wet chord progression and an obscured vocal. Those first few minutes are a chore, but the song eventually unravels quite nicely as layers of guitar and delay submerge the vocal and keys.

If nothing else Forget allows Blumberg to follow breadcrumb trails he might not get the chance to explore in Yuck, and even though the result is probably too overwrought and serious, it still feels like a worthwhile endeavor. Blumberg is obviously an exciting young songwriter, but it’s hard not to feel that there are just too many other people doing the sensitive-songwriter thing in more inventive, resonant ways right now for Oupa to truly stand out on its own.