She is rescued from the forest by an unknown man who accompanies her in spoken dialogues after a few tracks here, revealing his dark side as more and more drugs are offered. “Hell is not a certain evil, Hell is other people … or the lack thereof”, she sings, introducing the themes of love and loneliness. Aiko experiences the highest highs and lowest lows of human emotion, often blissfully in love, but she begins her journey by venturing into Japan’s suicide forest on “Jukai”. What she talks about certainly warrants her surprise. “LSD” introduces the album as Aiko begins her trip and says “And what I saw, oh my god…”, referring to the images she comes across over the course of the album. With every vocal run and harmony she draws me deeper into the world of the album.
Aiko’s vocals stay true to her trademark breathy style, but over such a sparse and psychedelic instrumental they adopt this beautiful, almost ghostly quality, floating above the track with a calming presence. While some have criticized the album’s length due to its similar sounding tracks, Aiko’s voice has a hypnotic quality and I barely realized how long I had been sitting there listening to the album. I’ts tough to compare individual songs on this project, as they all flow together seamlessly in one concrete experience. Trip is the well thought out concept album I’ve been waiting for this year.
Aiko paints a world to get lost in while addressing some pretty heavy topics. Aiko’s becomes lost in a psychedelic and sometimes scary world, addressing her relationships including her disastrous and short-lived marriage to producer Dot Da Genius and her new “soulmate” Big Sean along the way.Īiko additionally taps into her alter-ego, Penny – a nickname her grandfather gave her that she states is her “purest, most authentic form” and dedicates the album to her brother, who died of cancer in 2012 and shows up a few times here. Nearly an hour and a half in length, Aiko’s silky smooth vocals guide us through a project framed as one long drug trip.
R&B/Soul singer Jhene Aiko’s sophomore album, Trip, is less of an album and more of an experience.
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