Earlier this month, Childish Gambino hosted his mysterious Pharos music event in Joshua Tree, California. The three day festival took place under the roof of a 150-foot wide dome. By now you may or may not have heard anything surrounding the festival or any details on his new album. Most of this is due to Gambino’s strictly no phones in the dome policy.
Before entering the dome punters had to lock their phones in bags, creating perhaps one of the only truly unplugged experiences of late.
@ChildishHecbino PSA: this is the bag that we will be putting our phones in. #Pharos pic.twitter.com/z5eRSm5UMl
— Hecbino⁶ (@ChildishHecbino) September 3, 2016
Here is what we do know about his new album Pharos:
The Pharos album is going to be as awe-inspiring as the festival was.
Without actually being at the festival and hearing Gambino debut twelve new tracks from his upcoming album, I can only go off what people have said. Pharos will feature little-to-no rapping, instead a whole lot of soulful singing, that fuses elements of funk, jazz, soul, blues, hip-hop and pop and is backed by a live band and mini-choir.
We knew Gambino could sing, take tracks like Sober for example, but a whole album with very little rapping could equally divide his fans into those who love him as a rapper and those who love him as an artist. That being said, the reviews from the festival honour it’s creativity and new direction, some have even called it amazing and laud Gambino as a genius. None, or none that I have seen, have said it was bad.
Twitter seemed to agree that Gambino performed twelve tracks running approximately 70 minutes and had no features, or at least none who took to the stage at the event.
#PHAROS in review:
• 12 songs
• Concept album with creepy tribal vibe
• Funk/jazz hybrid
• Minimal rapping
• Creatively different— Michael Artress (@MichaelArtress) September 3, 2016
Basically we know very little, but it’s going to be different from Because The Internet. There is still no release date or any official information in circulation, but hopefully we will find out something soon.
Gambino is heading to Australia at the end of the year. Unfortunately, he will not be playing any festival sideshows, so only those with tickets to Falls and Field Day have the opportunity to be lucky enough to get a taste of Pharos. Who knows though, maybe it will be released before then, and all this rumour, speculation and over-thinking Tweets can be put to rest.
Image: Twitter