ANDERSON .PAAK - Ventura LP

Label: 12Tone Music

Still climbing in 2019, Anderson .Paak won a Best Rap Performance Grammy award for "Bubblin" and returned in April with Ventura, at which point his preceding Oxnard wasn't even six months old.

Although Oxnard and Ventura were laid down during the same sessions, the latter is neither leftovers nor a patchwork of adequate material that didn't fit on the former. Rather remarkably, it's the self-termed rap singer's tightest and most concentrated album yet.

There's no space allowed for interlude hijinks or wayward diversions. Paak devotes most of these 40 minutes to relating the ups and downs of intimacy.

From the lithe and rich basslines to sweetened strings -- among the many elements courtesy of Paak's Free Nationals live band and other long-term associates -- the album is a treat to the ears. It's unmistakably in the tradition of soul and funk older than the artist himself, but could not have been made any earlier than the late 2010s.