That’s not to say it’s treading in the same waters, though, no pun intended. Where Swimming seemed soaked in atmospheric hushes and smothered in echoed reverb, Circles is a more immediate and straight forward listen. From its poignant lead single ‘Good News’ to the smooth, jazzy track ‘Hand Me Downs’, Mac’s lyrics seem to eerily foreshadow his early death, almost as if he knew what was ahead. And, oddly, he seems okay with it. In his own words, ‘there’s more waiting on the other side’.
Many, many moments here will have any Mac Miller fan close to tears. The crooning vocals on ‘Everybody’, coupled with a simple drum and piano score, feel painfully sad to hear given the context. Elsewhere, ‘That’s On Me’ sees Mac take on the blame for all of his personal faults and let downs, never offering solutions to his problems but accepting them all the same.
There’s a range of tones throughout, too, including the electro-funk banger ‘Blue Worlds’, and the fizzing, bouncy ‘Complicated’. Mac’s personality is all still here, as he weaves through complex, heavy introspection and finds peace in himself, expanding upon the funky grooves of Swimming’s lighter moments. Occasionally he deviates away from hip-hop entirely, sounding like a Beatles prodigy on tracks such as ‘Circles’ and ‘Surf’, but never straying too far from the sounds that make him so well loved.
It’s also hard for me to keep an objective perspective when listening to this record. As someone who is deeply attached to his previous album, Circles was always going to be an emotional experience. I’m wholly satisfied with how the project turned out though, and in many ways this is a loving and reassuring closure to a life that should never have been cut so short or so soon.
Circles is a reminder of how fleeting and how fragile our lives are. Mac’s work was a pallet of colour, vibrancy, and disarming openness, and I often had to remind myself that the vocals I was hearing throughout were from someone who was no longer with us.
Given the circumstances, this album comes across almost other worldly, as if an apparition is speaking from somewhere else, trapped inside twelve tracks. This isn’t the case, of course, but there’s something deeply comforting about Circles. It feels like the calm after a storm, a hug after upset, the ray of sunshine that comes after a long, tiring period of greyness. I apologise if that all sounds like wanky nonsense, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed with emotion when talking about this record.
I hope that this is the last album we hear from Mac’s team. I’d hate to see his name go the way of XXXTentacion and Lil Peep, used by record labels for a shameless buck. For now, things seem bright, and Circles should stand as the last and potentially best work from one of hip-hop’s brightest talents. It’s a smile from someone who’s no longer here, and it’s a genuine joy to listen to.
Rest easy, Mac Miller.
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