Endless Review

Released as a film of Ocean building a staircase in a warehouse, this is the strangest object in his catalogue and the one hardest to defend on its own terms. There are real moments. U N I T Y and Rushes are as good as anything on the album that followed. Wither is a lovely fragment. Slide on Me has genuine drive. The Isley Brothers cover that opens it, sung over almost nothing, is gorgeous.

But the record moves in and out of ideas without committing to any of them, tracks fade before they resolve, and the whole thing is designed to feel like overheard work rather than finished music. That is a legitimate artistic choice and it also means almost nobody plays it. It exists mostly as a contractual manoeuvre and as a companion to a masterpiece released twenty four hours later, which is a hard shadow to stand in. Fascinating to study and rarely worth putting on.