Mac Miller's Faces: An Off-Balance Retrospective.
The mixtape first released in May of 2014.
To try and succinctly define a creative’s ever-changing craft, it is nothing if not an imprecise science.
But even in the moment, Mac Miller (the stage name of Malcolm McCormick) was particularly tricky - his artistry was always on the move.
Miller, who died in 2018, at 26, of an accidental drug overdose, was someone who prided himself on the constant refinement of his abilities, during an almost-decade long career.
He emerged out of Pittsburgh’s hip-hop scene in the early 2010s, still a teenager but remarkably fully-formed. A confidence and “this is who I am” attitude in his earliest projects, raw though it was at times, that even the most accomplished artists can spend years trying to perfect.
Last fall, not long after the fifth anniversary of his death, I wrote about Miller's too-brief career (in addition to how his music impacted me personally, alongside countless others).
An affable public persona, a genuine enthusiasm for his work, counterbalanced, by a more modest candour: he never shied away from his mental health struggles nor his long-time battles with drug and substance abuse.
It was an honesty that went beyond the interview space, however, continually being at the forefront of his work, more so as his musicianship, both lyrically and as a producer (often under the alias of Larry Fisherman) evolved.
The Miller you hear on 2010’s K.I.D.S, for example (a tape best characterized by an easy-going, house party playlist vibe) is remarkably different from the purposely transgressive, horror-core imagery found on the alter-ego driven mixtape of Delusional Thomas (2013) or the rap-jazz stylings of 2016’s The Divine Feminine.
More so, on 2018’s Grammy-nominated album, Swimming: overlaid with classical, jazz-inspired production, with Miller at perhaps his most clear and introspective (at least during the projects released during his lifetime, of which Swimming was the last).
But for many, the top spot on the podium of his discography? It was and remains, Faces, the mixtape Miller released almost ten years ago, to the day, in May of 2014.
An exploratory collage of religion, fame, the human condition, sexuality and addiction. Loose and impressionistic, viewed through a pop culture coated lens. A framework supported with dense, psychedelic-soaked lyricism and tightly-knotted production.
And while many of Miller’s frequent collaborators, from Earl Sweatshirt to Vince Staples make memorable appearances, all of it is centred by a rapper, who while only in his early 20s at the time, openly and repeatedly confronts the delicateness of morality, by virtue of his lifestyle, head on.
A sense of retroactive tragedy, lingering, given the circumstances of his death just four years later.
You can follow the creative through-line presented throughout Faces, to what Miller had first built on Macadelic and Watching Movies with the Sound Off, though only to a point.
The Pittsburgh native, presenting a narrative but on his terms alone, his thoughts, both sharp yet plainly unfiltered.
Moving from the dissecting the nature of his celebrity on Friends (I never leave my house, I don’t why I got an extra car/My pool house studio is covered up with pencil marks/And everyday its full of Jokers, like a deck of cards) or backed by production that that is rich with bass and sonic non-sequiturs, as he confronts the dark reality of his drug use on songs like Angel Dust, New Faces v2 and Polo Jeans (Long lines of those white women/I’m with the homies, bump Counting Crows/Just went through a half ounce of coke, blood pourin’ all out my nose/Don’t tell my Mom I got a drug problem).
There is the “pure-bars” energy of It Just Doesn’t Matter and Diablo (How’d I get my G-pass? None of your f——— beeswax/These raps, bring a joint together like a kneecap/F——— the little eight balls, show me where the keys at/The time continuum, Mortal Kombat finish ‘em) or the “trilogy of life” that defines the tenth through twelfth songs on the tape, Happy Birthday, Wedding and Funeral.
Maybe it is the haunting straightforwardness of the final song, Grand Finale, of which death and the spectre of it, are addressed with a stark openness.
In 2021, in advance of Faces being re-released on streaming services, Miller’s estate released Making Faces: A Short Film, a seven-minute video delving into the period surrounding the tape’s creation.
There isn’t any new material presented, necessarily but rather, it provides a space for refection.
A few of Miller’s collaborators, recalling his infectious energy during recording, even considering his heavier lyrical content, as he begin to fully step into the experimental-leanings that would define the rest of his work - Miller, who was proficient with various instruments and never afraid to tap into new genres or avenues of expression, sometimes, all at once.
That experimental edge, reaching its apex on Miller’s sixth and final album, Circles, which was released posthumously in January 2020 - melding all of Miller’s creative musings throughout his career: hip-hop, funk, R&B influence.
In partnership with producer Jon Brion, who completed the album with the blessing of Miller’s family following his passing, it was envisioned as a companion to Swimming (as in, Swimming in Circles) followed by a third album which would have seen Miller return to his more traditional, hip-hop beginnings - as Brion highlighted, when he spoke to The New York Times in 2020.
There were supposed to be three albums: the first, “Swimming,” was sort of the hybridization of going between hip-hop and song form. The second, which he’d already decided would be called “Circles,” would be song-based. And I believe the third one would have been just a pure hip-hop record. I think he wanted to tell people, “I still love this, I still do this.”
To ponder too much on what couldn’t be though, it can take away from what was - and with Miller, that was an artist who was never truly satisfied, always pushing up against his creative boundaries.
A metamorphosis that Faces brought to the forefront.
Remaining as strong as ever, a decade later.