2019 was quite the year for the Armstrong family. Dido returned to the scene with her first album in six years, with a world tour that followed shortly after. Still On My Mind, a collaboration with brother Rollo who helped produce and co-write the majority of the album, was a smashing success, landing at #5 on my favorite albums of the year list. Then in October Dido hinted at another project involving the two and the mysterious story of R Plus (fashioned as R+ on the album cover) started to come to light.
Unbeknownst to me, this project had its origins last year. Three singles were released under the moniker R&D, "My Boy", "Together" and "Cards". No fan fare, no credits, so little promotion it completely flew under my radar and I am a huge fan of Rollo and anything he is involved with. Since he doesn't have much of a social media presence it was easy for these releases to completely sneak past me and I never saw any mention of them on Dido's Twitter either, where she posts regularly. So when the R Plus project was announced, it all made sense. R&D. Rollo & Dido. And sure enough, all three of the songs released as R&D were included on the announced album The Last Summer.
You can't really call this Rollo's first proper "solo" album. He has released so many projects over the years, under so many different names, with so many different collaborators it makes your head spin. He's of course best known as one of the founding members of Faithless, one of the most successful electronic music bands of all time. Dido has always contributed vocals on Faithless' albums, Rollo has always written and produced material for Dido's solo albums, it makes perfect sense they would then collaborate on a whole new project, this time with Rollo as the face of the band as it were. But the two are joined on The Last Summer by another member of Faithless, the great Sister Bliss who is responsible for keyboards, synths and bass on the entire album. It's practically a Faithless reunion, minus Maxi Jazz rapping on the tracks.
The Last Summer consists of twelve tracks, but really only six proper songs. Three of those are the aforementioned "My Boy", "Together" and "Cards", although they appear here in slightly altered versions from the original R&D releases. So you might ask, how do six songs result in an entire album? Well much like his 2000 release When We Were Young under the project Dusted, Rollo creates an entire story through musical interludes, segues and spoken bits. This is not just slapping eight to ten tracks together and calling it an album, this is treating the album as an art form, telling a story through music, taking the listener on an experience. The Last Summer is meant to be listened to as a whole and it is this craftsmanship, and Rollo's unmatched production abilities, that made it a lock for my favorite album of 2019. It's an album that must be experienced first through headphones in order to truly appreciate it. Only there can you hear everything going on deep in the mix, every nuance in the background, every soundscape that swirls around your head. A truly immersive experience. However, it's also an album that begs to be experienced pounding through a good set of speakers loudly as it is still, at its heart, a dance record.
Inspired by vacations Rollo took as a teen and in his early 20's to such exotic locales as Ibiza, The Last Summer opens with "Landing", the sound of an airplane taking off to ethereal vocals which slowly builds to the main keyboard line from the first proper song "Together". "My Boy" follows, with a spoken intro of a woman describing what the word love means to her, before Dido's vocal takes over. "Clouds Like Islands" is one of a few interludes that move the story along while also serving as kind of an intro to the next proper song, the pulsating "Summer Dress". The middle section of the album consists of three of these type of tracks, "Diving" which serves as a showcase on the drums, "Ozzie Girl", a piece featuring an Australian girl revisiting a less than memorable early romantic encounter, and "...On Back Of A Scooter (Fast)" which leads into the next full song, "Those Were The Days". The story of The Last Summer is not difficult to follow. It's a reflection on summers of Rollo's youth, spent on beautiful beaches, flirting, falling in love and lust, partying with friends and loved ones, your whole life ahead of you. It was particularly inspired after a battle with lung cancer, discovered during a routine checkup after his 50th birthday. After fully recovering and facing his mortality, Armstrong decided he had more to give musically and The Last Summer was born. Album closer "Look Up!" asks the listener to look around and appreciate every aspect of life, from the clouds and birds in the sky to all of those important in your life around you.
The Last Summer is supposed to be the first in a series of R Plus releases from Rollo of him collaborating with other artists. This time, he handles the production, mixing and programming, Sister Bliss covers the music and Dido is on vocals. Will this lead to some of the coveted, unreleased All Thieves material being released finally, a question I still get asked to this day since I am one of the few to have reviewed it? We can hope, but in the meantime Rollo has shared the moving The Last Summer and it deserves your attention. It's my favorite album of 2019.
Favorite tracks: "My Boy", "Summer Dress", "Those Were The Days", "Together"
The Last Summer was released October 11th, 2019 on Loaded Records.
Official Website of Rollo Armstrong
Purchase The Last Summer from Amazon.com
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