‘Other things’;
Mac Miller’s Circles and Posthumous Albums
BY CHARLOTTE STANBRIDGE At the time of Mac Miller’s untimely death, he was already deep into the recording of Circles; the now posthumously released album that acts as the follow-up to 2018’s Swimming. The two albums were intended to create a loosely drawn concept - Swimming in Circles - that reflects the deeply introspective nature of Miller’s lyrical content. The most mature and fully realised of Miller’s work, Swimming is a tour de force of a young artist at the height of their powers. We feel him trying to move forward on ‘Perfecto’, beginning to accept the discordant nature of life, but being held back and restrained by ingrained habit on ‘Jet Fuel’, and facing the dissociative effects of alienation on ‘Conversation Part 1’. ‘Self-Care’ is a hip-hop masterpiece, with a switch-up
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half way through the track that brings the second half to reflect upon the first; offering hope for the future as an antidote to present confusion. Chaos lurks underneath the surface of the album, whose sonic diversity showed Miller moving towards funk, soul and even orchestral sounds to act as the foundation for his introspective musings. The lyrics are self-aware without being self-conscious, giving the album a free and spacious quality whose trajectory is upward moving and hopeful. Thus when the news of Miller’s death broke in September 2018, only a month after the release of this album which seemed to scream recovery and forward movement, it shook many of his fans who had taken Swimming as a sign of good things to come.
