Nourished by Time: The Passionate Ones

"Midway through "BABY BABY," a highlight of the excellent new Nourished by Time record, there is a sudden, descending synth swell, coupled with a delirious groan: Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby! This refrain, "baby, baby," is the centerpiece of the song, and up to now, it has been mellow: a muttered coo, spoken like a groggy lover. As a vocalist, Marcus Brown is dynamic and world-weary, his elastic range spanning the hope and heartbreak of life in a withering empire."

"Weightless as his music may sound, it is burdened by capitalist rot, which is what makes it wrenching-pinpointing the precise moment you realize, like many Americans, that you are fucked. This despair floods "BABY BABY," and at this specific juncture, when he trades his mutter for a moan, it curdles into something agonizing. No longer tender, "baby, baby" becomes a cry for mercy: the tipping point between having everything and having it taken from you."

"Brown, an outspoken 31 year old from Baltimore, makes music for the things our dystopia steals from us. The moniker "Nourished by Time," which borrows from "Guided by Voices," is a statement of process: a "reminder," Brown explained last year, "that if you put your energy and put your love and heart into something, it has no choice but to bloom." As in his music, there is a bleak subtext to this beautiful sentiment. Energy, love, and heart-human things-are incompatible with late-stage capitalism, a system where time is not nurtured, but ground, along with people, into profit."

Marcus Brown's Nourished by Time amplifies airy, omnivorous R&B with tougher textures and wider thematic reach, seeking a sound able to sustain daily labor and sustain dreaming. Brown's vocals shift from intimate murmurs to anguished moans, transforming tenderness into cries that register loss and desperation under capitalist pressures. Songs like "BABY BABY" dramatize the exact moment tenderness becomes a plea for mercy. The album title emphasizes patient cultivation and creative growth while acknowledging that human energy, love, and time are often eroded by late-stage capitalism. Brown, a 31-year-old Baltimore artist, balances beauty with social indictment.

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