Album Review: The Passionate Ones by Nourished By Time

Marcus Brown (aka Nourished By Time) has always unabashedly been himself, and he made that clear on his honeyed debut, 2023's Erotic Probiotic 2. The luscious RnB melodies and punchy drum machine pads from the '80s and '90s that began to flourish in his debut have matured and been polished to perfection on his sophomore offering, The Passionate Ones. Nourished By Time effortlessly makes a cramped bedroom a personal dance floor, a shitty bluetooth speaker a temple, and a frightening future a little more navigable.

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Brown isn't too different from you and me, even though his supposedly sudden breakthrough might suggest otherwise, given his 2023 debut Erotic Probiotic 2 topping year-end lists, recent signing to XL with his 2024 EP Catching Chickens, and vigorous touring schedule. No, he's a cunning and consistent artist devoted to his principles. In the years leading to his deserved acclaim, Brown endured thankless drudgery to finance his music - his last retail job was at Whole Foods, he wrote his debut in his parents' basement in Baltimore, and above all, he kept on dreaming of better.

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The press release for The Passionate Ones describes the latest record by Marcus Brown's Nourished by Time as a sermon "howled from the underbelly of late-stage capitalism." Anyone who's seen the Baltimore-born artist perform knows he has the magnetism of a preacher, and like any shaman worth his salt, he has a gospel to spread. However, this isn't a fire-and-brimstone tirade but a soulful manifesto on how to stay human in a dehumanising world. Combining 90s R'n'B and synth-pop with an avant-garde sensibility, Brown crafts mid-tempo jams that map politics onto personal experience.

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The big iridescent heart on the cover of last year's Fontaines DC album, titled Romance. The even bigger papier mache heart on the cover of 'Grandiose Love', the recent single from Zoee. Jarvis Cocker reminding us that we've "got to have love" on this year's new Pulp album, titled More. The unabashed pop of Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter.

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Marcus Brown's music is nothing if not socially conscious. "We can't keep having masters/Baby, that's all I want to say," he sings on "It's Time," a track from The Passionate Ones, his second album as Nourished by Time. On "Baby Baby," Brown jokes about being a minor celebrity in quick, semi-rapped verses but then pivots to point out that "if you can bomb Palestine/You can bomb Mondawmin," an African-American neighborhood in his hometown of Baltimore.

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