"Deep down the hollow is what you promise me. All I can do is to follow"...

This summer I arrived late to an album that had been getting airplay on independent stations for over a year, Milky Chance's Sadnecessary. Released in October 2013 the album did not make much headway in the US until the following year when they began playing sold-out shows and appeared on late-night with Jimm Kimmel. SPIN magazine picked Sadnecessary Album of the week, and that fall USA Today wrote a favorable review describing the German duo as a blend of folk, reggae, and jazz. Noisey described them as combining house and electronic beats with reggae and R&B influences. None of this actually conveys Dausch and Rehbein's sound though. It's like when gourmet coffee roasters describe a blend with food names and colors that have nothing to do with the actual flavor of the brew, persimmon cherry mocha with a cinnamon finish. [What does that actually mean beyond sounding interesting?] Wikipedia lists Milky Chance as "Folktronica" which is more closely a descriptor, but not knowing any of the definitive albums listed in the genre, leaves me wanting a better category.

While the US was only just discovering Milky Chance last fall, they had been gaining momentum on YouTube and SoundCloud, and had developed a strong fan base all over Europe by the summer of 2014. Their first single has garnered over 150 million views. Winning awards in Germany, touring the US and Canada late in 2014, hitting venues like the Bowrey Ballroom in NYC and the House of Blue in Boston, Milkey Chance has worked hard to gain an audience for this first album.

Songs on Sadnecessary start with synthesized beats (predictable and nondescript, while surprisingly thin and pleasant), adding clean slightly growly vocals (in English) as a layer on top. The contrast of the vocals over the synth is nice, but it's in the the rhythms that sound like clean R&B rhythm guitar with a hint of a reggae strum that my ears really engage. There is a hollowness about the sound that works, each song sounding much like the others on first listen, but becoming quite distinctive on subsequent listens. This album was a passing choice in my list in June, and is a staple for me three months later.

Sadnesessary, Feathery, Down by the River, and Loveland have all become more dear to me that the initial single that attracted me to the album, Stolen Dance. The entire album needs to be listened to which is not something young people do these days, but in this case the temple and pace of the album as presented works. With nearly an hour of recorded material, Sadnecessary is quickly making it to my best albums list of 2014.