Futura Utopia - 12 Questions

The Guardian 0

(70Hz/Platoon)
Actors, poets and musicians tackle various posers on super-producer Fraser T Smith’s inventive debut

This is the first artist project from super-producer Fraser T Smith, architect of Stormzy and Dave’s debuts alongside Kano’s pivotal Made in the Manor. Smith’s debut wrestles with 12 oversized questions, answered by actors, poets, musicians and other artists with spoken word, poetry and some joyously unpredictable music.

Some of these queries are too gnomic or exhausted to be worth repeating. What Is Love? has been asked since the dawn of language, or at least since Haddaway in 1994. How Much Is Enough? will not be solved by either Kojey Radical’s 41-second musings nor by the luscious pop rap Million$Bill that follows. Interludes such as Es Devlin’s engaging aperçus during Why Are We So Divided When We’re So Connected? are too brief to be meaningful, yet not so long as to disrupt the album’s flow.