[渣翻] Pitchfork Reviews: Circles, 7.4/10

原文地址：https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/mac-miller-circles/

The first posthumous album from Mac Miller plays like a companion piece to Swimming. It’s an optimistic epilogue to the life of an aspirational artist.

Circles是在Mac Miller去世后发行的第一张专辑，它就像是Swimming的姐妹篇。专辑中充满乐观阳光与积极向上，为一位志存高远的艺术家的人生旅程画上了句号。

Mac Miller’s death from an accidental drug overdose sent ripples across the rap community he helped cultivate. He was a kind-hearted collaborator and invested heavily in others’ growth, but his musical arc was left unfinished. In August of 2018, he put out Swimming, an album that was like a quantum leap in self-discovery. Then, a month later, at 26, he was gone, unable to realize that potential. Now there’s Circles, a posthumously released Swimming companion piece that gives his years of work a bit of closure. It’s the culmination of a career spent improving, a fitting epilogue to an aspirational life.

Mac Miller由于吸毒过量而去世的消息在他曾经深耕的说唱圈内激起了很大的波澜。他是一个心地善良的合作者，总是为其他歌手的成长发展付出很多心力，反而无暇顾及自己的音乐事业。在2018年的8月，他发行了Swimming，这张专辑在自我探索方面有了很大的突破。然而在一个月之后，他26岁时，他去世了，于是他再也没有机会更深入地挖掘自己的潜能。如今，Circles作为Swimming的姊妹篇，在Mac Miller去世后发行，为他数年来的音乐事业的收场。这张专辑应该为亟待整顿的说唱圈敲响警钟；同时，它也是一个志存高远的艺术家人生的完美谢幕。

Miller had worked closely on early versions of these songs with composer-producer Jon Brion, who was committed to finishing the album after Miller’s death. It’s unclear how deep Miller was into the process at the time of his passing, but this sounds like a completed work, or as complete as it can be. “This is a complicated process that has no right answer. No clear path,” his family wrote in a letter on his Instagram. “We simply know that it was important to Malcolm for the world to hear it.”

Miller在构思Circles中歌曲的雏形时，与作曲家、制作人Jon Brion有着密切的合作关系，Jon Brion也在Miller去世后致力于完成整张专辑的制作。在Miller去世之前，他在这张专辑中的参与程度有多高我们不得而知，但是这张专辑听起来像是一个完成度很高的作品，或者说，它已经达到了所能企及的最大的完成度。“This is a complicated process that has no right answer. No clear path（制作这张专辑的过程非常复杂，因为没有正确答案可循，没有明确的道路可走）”他的家人在Instagram上写到。“We simply know that it was important to Malcolm for the world to hear it（我们只知道，让所有人听到这张专辑，对于Malcolm来说很重要）”

If Swimming wasn’t Miller’s best album, it was certainly the one where he came into his own as an artist. There are moments on 2015’s GO:OD AM where his rapping is sharpest, 2014’s Faces accommodated his most ambitious ideas, and 2016’s The Divine Feminine is his most diverse and complete project, a testament to the community of musicians he’d established around him. But Swimming hinted at an artist who’d finally cleared his mind and found his footing. Circles provides some resolution and helps finish Miller’s final thoughts. Miller seemed to envision Circles as the completion of a loop. “My god, it go on and on/Just like a circle, I go back to where I’m from,” he rapped on Swimming closer “So It Goes.” That record was about being fine on the surface while struggling with anxiety; this one is about knowing there’s something to be done about it. Both records are about working through depression, how the bad days are long and the good days feel fleeting, but the tone is more optimistic here. The imagery of a cluttered mind is a near-constant in Miller’s final songs. On the plucked single “Good News,” he likens the recovery process to spring cleaning, which feels fitting for someone looking to hit the refresh button. “Sometimes I get lonely/Not when I’m alone/But it’s more when I’m standin’ in crowds that I’m feelin’ the most on my own,” he raps on “Surf,” a poignant realization for someone who spent his last years surrounded by throngs of fans. But it comes with an epiphany, a sort of thesis for the album: “And I know that somebody knows me/I know somewhere, there’s home/I’m startin’ to see that all I have to do is get up and go.”

尽管Swimming并不是Miller最好的专辑，但它一定是Miller真正体现艺术家气质的一张专辑。在2015年的GO:OD AM中，他展现了犀利冷峻的说唱技巧；2014年的Faces 包蕴了他的野心；2016年的The Divine Feminine是他迄今为止完成度最高，同时又最多元化的作品，这张专辑证明了Miller的确吸引了一群优秀的音乐人聚集在他身边，共同成长进步。但是Swimming的问世，暗示了他终于摒弃杂念，脚踏实地，稳步前行。Miller在Circles中体现了某种决心，这张专辑也帮Miller填补了音乐概念上的空缺。Miller将Circles视为人生旅程环线的终点。“My god, it go on and on（我的天，它不停地持续）/Just like a circle, I go back to where I’m from（就像一个圈，我将要回到原点去）”，在Swimming的最后一首单曲“So It Goes”中，他这样唱道。Swimming讲述了一个人平静的表面下是如何痛苦地与焦虑情绪作斗争；Circles让人们明白，对抗焦虑情绪是有法可循的。两张专辑都是关于如何度过深陷抑郁的过程的，痛苦的日子如此漫长，而快乐的时光却总是那么短暂。只是在Circles中，演唱的语气较Swimming中更加乐观积极。在Circles的几首歌中，Miller对于杂乱无章的思绪描述不计其数。在充满了弹拨音效的“Good News”中，他将自我恢复的过程比作一次春季大扫除，这个比喻让想要按下“刷新”按钮来彻底改变生活现状的人感同身受。“Sometimes I get lonely（有时候我感到孤独）/Not when I’m alone（并不是只身一人的时候）/But it’s more when I’m standin’ in crowds that I’m feelin’ the most on my own（而是当我矗立在人群中央时，我就越感到孤不可耐）” 他在“Surf”中唱道。对于一个在生命的最后几年中都被粉丝簇拥着的歌手来说，保持这样难得的清醒尤其令人感到心酸。但是紧随其后的是他的顿悟，某种程度上也可以被称为是整张专辑的主旨: “And I know that somebody knows me（我知道有人会懂我）/I know somewhere, there’s home（我知道有个地方叫做家）/I’m startin’ to see that all I have to do is get up and go（我逐渐明了我需要做的就是打包走人）”

Circles never really opens up into a full-fledged rap album, content to push back and forth between lo-fi beat music and singer-songwriter indie folk, working almost entirely with live arrangements. After doing his most-ever singing on Swimming, he crosses a threshold into doing almost no rapping on Circles. That was the entire idea: two albums bringing balance to each other. The few songs that do have raps in them display his love of the form and improvement as a writer. On “Hand Me Downs,” he raps about moving carelessly and stumbling through the same patterns. “Hands,” the only full rap song, works through negativity while displaying the subtly knotty lyricism he fell in love with as a teenager.

Circles并不是一张真正成熟的专辑，它的曲风在低保真音乐与创作型独立民谣之间摇摆不定，几乎全部取材自现场演唱。在Swimming中贡献出个人历史上最佳演唱表现之后，他突破了自我：Circles中几乎没有说唱段。这是他筹备两张专辑的整体思路：这两张专辑的元素互相保持协调平衡。在Circles中几首含说唱段的歌曲中，Miller也充分表达了他对于说唱这种演唱形式的青睐，他也在这几首歌中展现了他在歌曲创作方面的进步。在“Hand Me Downs”中，他用说唱的形式讲述了自己的粗心大意，如何结结巴巴地说着重复的话。“Hands”，全专唯一一首全是说唱的歌，展现了他的悲观情绪，同时又运用较为巧妙而隐晦的抒情手法讲述了自己爱上了一个年轻姑娘的故事。

Miller was always trying to balance being the guy who started Facebook’s first Big L fan page with his love for the nakedness of 1970’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. He didn’t live long enough to get to really reconcile those sides of himself, but as halves of a complete work, Swimming and Circles come the closest. Together, they establish the rapper-producer as comfortable in his skin, no longer out to prove to naysayers he could bar out. These are mellow, relaxed songs in search of that exact state of being. “‘Fore I start to think about the future/First can I please get through a day/Without any complications,” he sings on “Complicated.” It’s more Plastic Ono Band than Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous—lots of guitars, some keys, light bass, the occasional synth line—but not beholden to any one sound.

一个是在Facebook上创立第一个Big L粉丝页的男孩，一个是对1970年John Lennon发行的Plastic Ono Band有着赤裸裸的爱的狂热粉丝，Miller一直尝试着在两种角色中寻找平衡。他的早逝让他再也无法协调自己的各方面特质，但是作为一个完整作品的各自一半组成部分，Swimming和Circles在本质上非常接近。这两张专辑一起，让这个创作型说唱歌手欣然接受了自我，再也不用不停地向质疑他的人证明他可以突破自我。这两张专辑中的歌，都用轻松而成熟的语调，对他的生活状态进行了讲述和探索。“‘Fore I start to think about the future（在我开始思考未来之前）/First can I please get through a day（首先，问问能否好好过完这一天）/Without any complications（在没有任何烦恼纠缠的情况下）”，他在“Complicated”中唱道。这首歌的风格更贴近John Lennon的Plastic Ono Band，而不是Big L的Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous——使用了大量的吉他伴奏，一些键盘音效，轻音贝斯，偶然出现的合成器演奏段——但是这些元素都并不受制于Miller的演唱。

The chill-out aesthetic won’t come as a surprise to those familiar with Mac Miller’s Space Migration Tour, which transformed the songs in his catalog with warm Internet-laced grooves from their days futzing with electronica and experimental jazz. He was a huge rap nerd but he also loved the prospect of playing with a live band. These songs feel like an attempt to smooth down his interests into something comprehensive, and Brion seems like the perfect person to usher them to completion. He serves as a co-producer on most songs, an additional producer on all the others, and his work makes the songs shapelier without compromising Miller’s vision for them.

对于那些参与过Mac Miller的“Space Migration”巡回演唱会的听众来说，这种弛放音乐的曲风并不稀奇。他将他的巡演曲目重新编制，用闲时瞎捣鼓电子乐和实验性爵士得来的灵感，在他的巡演曲中引领互联网时代音乐节奏的暖流回潮。Miller对说唱痴迷到疯狂，但是他也有着和现场乐队合作的愿景。Circles中的歌曲，像是在尝试着平息Miller对于各种音乐元素杂糅的狂热沉迷。Brion的确是一个最适合Miller的制作人，他使Circles中的每一首歌都有了圆满的归宿。Brion是大多数曲目的联合制作人，余下的的曲目他也作为附属制作人参与了制作。在他的努力下，这些歌曲听起来更加条理清晰、匀称悦耳，其间并没有掺杂Miller对它们的不成体统的理解。

When a young rapper dies too soon, fans start listening to their music much more closely, combing over their lyrics to find the writing on the wall. With Miller, you don’t have to dive too deeply. “God Speed” is rife with thoughts about going down a destructive path and on “Brand Name,” he wrote a disclaimer that proved tragically prescient: “To everyone who sell me drugs/Don’t mix it with that bullshit, I’m hopin’ not to join the 27 Club.” But Circles dispels any sense of fatalism in his music. He was still idealistic; in these songs, he is searching for a way to break the cycle, a way forward. It’s only appropriate that Mac Miller’s final musical act be one of self-reformation.

当一位说唱歌手意外地英年早逝，粉丝们就会更加仔细地聆听他们的作品，想要从歌词中寻找悲剧发生前的蛛丝马迹。但是对于Miller，你的探寻无需太过于深入，因为它们在Miller的作品中显而易见。“God Speed”中充斥着走向自我毁灭之路的消极情绪；在“Brand Name”中，他写下的“免责声明”却成了悲剧性的凶兆预言：“To everyone who sell me drugs（所有卖给我毒品的人）/Don’t mix it with that bullshit, I’m hopin’ not to join the 27 Club.（别再捣鼓那些狗屎玩意了，我还不想加入27岁俱乐部）”。但是Circles中的歌曲似乎驱散了宿命论的阴云，他在其中听起来还是非常理想主义；在Circles中，他像是在黑暗中摸索自救的方法，让他从堕落的死循环中跳出，勉力向前。也许对于Mac Miller来说，在最后一张音乐作品中仍在探寻重塑自我的道路上前行，就是和听众们最好的告别。

注：本人非英专，翻译只是兴趣所在，如有错误请在评论区指出或私信我，理性讨论不撕逼不吵架。数字评分及乐评内容代表Pitchfork观点，不代表本人观点（星级和短评代表本人观点，两者之间没有必然联系）