Additional Editing by Anouska Liat

When Frank Ocean released his major-label debut, Channel Orange, it was paraded as the return of old-school R&B, while simultaneously pushing the genre forward with jazz elements, electronics and emotive storytelling. Helping greatly to put the style back into the public consciousness, the world then endured an infamous four-year wait for a dual-release weekend from the enigmatic crooner. Endless and Blonde were rolled out one day after the other, the former being a fragmentary album of what-felt-like demos intended to relieve Frank of his Def Jam record contract, and the latter being a much more marketable album, released independently. The success of this strategy allowed Ocean to buy back his masters soon after, thus seeing fit to return to the forgotten Endless and amend it for a full re-release, possibly in the hope that it gets adequate recognition among listeners.

Having said this, the album is not available in the usual avenues one would expect, and any official methods are now closed. Instead, the only legal way is to purchase it on vinyl, CD or VHS on a web-store that was only open for a two-week window, and not on Spotify, Apple Music or even iTunes (though is, hilariously, on PornHub). It’s telling that the album is logistically in a world of its own; commenting on how much of an oddity it is in the context of modern soul music. Though many had initially written it off as a redundant body of work used to gather promotion and get out of Frank’s Def Jam contract, Endless is a loose and near formless set of songs that does not so much reach for the stars as it begins light-years away from contemporary R&B.

On the starting cut, 'At Your Best (You Are Love)', Frank uses an Isley Brothers-written, Aaliyah-covered classic to sedate the listener into a trance. Passion lifts his voice to a heavenly degree, and that surreal energy is grounded by a stern grip on the control of that falsetto. Strings and piano ring in the periphery, careful not to step in the way of Frank’s glass vocals on this song - it’s as blissful as it is impressive.

Sonically, however, Endless hurriedly diverts to many other sectors outside of traditional R&B in an attempt to bring them closer together. Aphex Twin fans will be quick to spot the several tracks towards the back end that use drum machine beats to pulse like a Richard D. James’ composition ('Deathwish', 'Rushes To', 'Mitsubishi Sony'). A well-distilled heaping of ambient pop and a dash of today’s trap production, and the result is a project immersed in ethereal sounds and voices that swim around in the mix like schools of marine wildlife.

'Alabama' has Frank closely layering vocals to the point of overlap, they are toppling over each other. In each channel, he murmurs the impulses that travel to the forefront of his mind, creating a whirlwind moment of claustrophobia. Backed by a marching, icy piano phrase, it blossoms to reveal Sampha’s lustrous voice cracking in the outro. Superseding the cruising opener, such a dramatic downshift occurs at only an interlude’s length, which is, in fact, a recurring trait of the record; its tracklist is incredibly spontaneous.