Baudelaire - Secret World

Baudelaire

​Secret World
self-released; 2017

3.5 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

Baudelaire is a solo effort from Australia who recently released Secret World. Secret World is a  lo-fi effort that showcases an artist with potential and also a lot of room for growth.

In 2017 it's easier than ever to whip up beats from inside your DAW. You really have to be pushing boundaries at this point to get noticed. Baudelaire does have some skill in this area but the beats still had a very out of the box feel and lacked some of the live dynamics you get with human played instruments. Baudelaire points to Radiohead and Grimes as influences and the latter was more noticeable. 

The album opens with an intro which was long. It’s an almost four-minute piano piece. It's also one of the more beautiful, sparse pieces on the album. The album starts to feel more mechanical and electronic after that.

First up is “Trippin.” I liked the vocals immediately but there was too much reverb on them and they were a little too muddy in the mix. The vocals in general felt more like a background element on this track. 

“Catch Me” is more club worthy thumper and although there is still too much reverb on the vocals they seemed liked the focal center. “Black Center” is a darker, more ominous track. The vocals sound better on this track and you could make out some of the lyrics. “Secret World” is very atmospheric and contains some inventive percussive elements. 

“Rose” is a slow moving track but also one of the highlights. The vocals work very well here. “Vaseline/Dreams” is poppy and has some of the most inventive production elements. There are certainly some highlights such as “Rain on the Windows” and the ambient closer Come Back Down to Earth (Outro).”

There are a lot things done right here but let's start with the number one thing that I think needs improvement. As a producer Baudelaire needs to learn how to trim a little excess from the songs and the album as a whole. There is really no reason this album had to contain fourteen tracks with some very long songs. I felt that ten of the best songs would have been a more powerful introduction. The songs in general could have been trimmed. Sometimes I thought the transitions could have been implemented sooner. 

There is also a ton of things I’m impressed by. I thought there were some inventive aspects to production on a couple of tracks and I really liked the vocals. On that point I think the vocals needs to feel a little bit more like the main instrument in the future. 

Overall, I was really impressed. There are tweaks I would like to hear implemented as the artist evolves but there is a ton of potential here.

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