SANTIGOLD
Master Of My Make BelieveAtlantic, 2012
TRACK LIST:You don't understand what it's like. Being Santigold. She never asked to be born, let alone an internationally successful songwriter and recording artist. SO FUCK YOU. She will emerge victorious. Honestly, to listen to Santi White go on sometimes; you'd think she'd spent the last couple of years indentured in a sneaker sweatshop rather than advertising them while gently riding the ebb-tide of being the decaf MIA.Don't mistake me, I love a moan as much as the next Scot, but Santi's seemingly near-constant mard gets infectious. In interviews she seems downhearted, neurotic, pretentious. Musing about herself as an "", bleating on about that pernicious celebrity culture no-one ever talks about, seeking solace for writers' block in transcendental bloody meditation ffs.The four-year process behind her second album has, though, certainly been laboured, worked on by producers and collaborators including Switch, Diplo, John Hill, Dave Sitek, Nick Zinner, me, you, your mum, the guy who fixes your mum's car, his mum. The label then sat on it, worried about a lack of tunes. On paper, it doesn't bode well.But then, nothing's ever easy for Santi. You could always hear the mental wrangling behind even the best bits of her debut, not least in her dour tones; she's never had sonic sister Maya Arulpragasam's cocky assurance. Even "Creator'"'s fun was a hard-won, teeth-gritted sort of fun, and the likes of "Starstruck" were positively gruelling, in a good, "Army Of Me" sort of way.Here, she comes out scrapping at first with "Disparate Youth" a suck-it survivalist anthem with kindergarten poetry: “Don't look ahead there's stormy weather/But if we go we go together” Santi crows subduedly over Zinner's shredding guitar. Similarly themed, "Go"'s zombified space-military march-come-double dutch chant is still probably the best thing here. From thereon in, the fight soon dies out of Master Of My Make-Believe.The weak, passable slaps of "Ghost From The Machine" and "Fame" don't stick. Santi seems halfarsed in her horseplay, she had more balls back when she was Santo. "Freak Like Me" has a little more of that up-yours energy and a rubberised chorus topped with nonchalant little la la las, but in an era when Beyonce's co-opted the Diplo/Switch/MIA/Santi sound, you've gotta do better than this.The stuff that seems to bear the marks of Zinner and Sitek is fresher, like "This Isn't Our Parade", ambient synthpop with Santi in rich voice, its relaxed melancholy offset by a gutsy “hey-hey-heya” chorus, and "Riot's Gone", which despite its passing nod to The Troubled Times We Live In, has some of the light beauty of Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Skeleton".Master Of My Make Believe isn't an awful record, but it is one that sounds like it could do with a good cry, a hot bath, and a hug. As it is, it sounds like Santi's more mastered by her make-believe than the other way round right now. Still, we hear she's looking into giving up music in favour of penning scripts. Excellent move – the stressless and red-tape free world of should give her far less to grumble about.
Master Of My Make BelieveAtlantic, 2012
MOODS:
Screw you, I'm Santigold and that's all you need to know.
Similar:
MIA, but chilling on a quiet Sunday afternoon with the papers.

- Go!
- Disparate Youth
- God from the Machine
- Fame
- Freak Like Me
- This Isn't Our Parade
- The Riot's Gone
- Pirate in the Water
- The Keepers
- Look At These Hoes
- Big Mouth
- Never Enough
- GO! (Switch Remix)
- Disparate Youth (The 2 Bears Remix)
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