Dave Simpson 

Big Boi and Phantogram: Big Grams review – joyous synthpop-rap collision

This unlikely collaboration plays to both parties’ strengths, and the best bits are enormous fun
  
  

Big Boi and Phantogram, AKA Big Grams
Sweetly haunting… Big Boi and Phantogram, AKA Big Grams Photograph: PR

This unlikely collaboration began after Outkast’s Big Boi came across the US synthpop duo Phantogram’s music online – specifically, Mouthful of Diamonds. The resulting mini-album mostly plays to their respective strengths – rock-solid Big Boi raps, dreamlike vocals from Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel – amid lots of swaggering electronic hip-hop pop. Although chalk and cheese, the two very different voices seem a natural fit on Run for Your Life and Lights On, sweetly haunting pop about post-closing time female vulnerability. Rapper Daddy Fat Saxxx joins the party for the epic, orchestral stabs-laden Fell in the Sun; Barthel raps for the first time ever in Goldmine Junkie; and Run the Jewels turn up to fire the storming electro-rap Born to Shine. There are less cohesive moments – the Skrillex-driven closer Drum Machine doesn’t come off at all – but the best bits are as much of a joy to listen to as they sound as if they were to make.

 

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