Music goes beyond words; it’s feeling, texture, sound. This is the case with 18-year-old Nigerian alternative R&B artist nahdoitagain. His ultramodernist album, He Laughs at Things He is Confused About, exists in a space where sound itself is the only language. With sparse lyrics to guide the listener, the project has a hypnotic, otherworldly atmosphere with abstract compositions and unpredictable sonic patterns that push the boundaries of what music can be. It’s a bold compilation embracing chaos and coherence in equal measure, allowing the listener to create their own interpretations rather than imposing a singular narrative.
The album begins with “TRIED TO TELL YOU,” immediately immersing the listener in its swirling, amorphous soundscape with a repeating pulse to anchor the piece. Meanwhile, rich guitar riffs, distorted echoes, and fragmented melodies ripple through the mix, creating something stellar in the listener’s mind, exciting in an uncertain way. This becomes the layer for a project where each track feels like an experiment, a venture into the extraterrestrial—it is effective enough that you can imagine yourself, with your eyes shut, floating through space and dark matter, watching, outside your body, as you slowly spin upside down. Obviously, nahdoitagain intended to capture fleeting emotions—fear, angst, heartache, disorientation—through sonic manipulation rather than conventional structure, and we’re so here for it.
Throughout He Laughs at Things He is Confused About, nahdoitagain employs a meticulous approach to layering, allowing contrasting elements to interact unexpectedly. “NEUROPLASTICITY” leans into dissonance—its warbling synths and broken percussive bursts feeling like a neural network rewiring itself in real time. The track is also supported by vocals akin to someone who’s simultaneously in agony and hopeful something good will come out from his cries—maybe some relief. In contrast, “WITHIN” offers something close to normalcy; its stretched-out bluesy tones hovering over sparse, skeletal rhythms, evoke an easy feeling like strolling through the park on a warm day. The musicologist skillfully supports this cadence with a bass drum and light hi-hats amplifying the sound’s richness.
And that, for the most part, is the album’s tone—from eccentric to modern electric bluesy to whatever the artist feels the need to express; its unpredictability is one of its greatest strengths. “JUNK” takes on a folksy blues undertone with twangy instrumentals as if drifting between the tangible and the intangible, between something real and something imagined. It features muffled vocals telling of a failing relationship with lines in tune with the album’s celestial theme, making the listener envision a fading star. “There are reasons that we see each other less and less, but I’m not angry / But I’m counting to ten…,” a grieving voice sings. Though buried under layers of sound, the lyrics feel like a distant echo of unresolved thoughts—half musings in a diary—blending seamlessly into the track’s melancholic atmosphere. Meanwhile, “GHOST” builds on a different aesthetic, where soft, guttural tones weave through its warped, underwater-like frequencies. Again, the smooth, thick sounds are almost human, adding an organic depth to the track’s ethereal quality. The intrigue of its animal nature makes it one of the album’s most haunting moments and something you’d imagine as a soundtrack for a horror film. Similarly, “FOMO” carries a distant, lo-fi beat buried beneath deep, bloodcurdling sounds, strangely giving the track an enveloping, almost meditative feel. It is these moments where the album feels alive, refusing to settle into anything predictable.
True nahdoitagain is all about the atypical, but very few times, He Laughs at Things He is Confused About flirts with structure, only to abandon it at the last moment. “DUST” starts with a steady, almost danceable—or at least recognizable—rhythm before dissolving into a haze of fragmented noise supported by heavy but muffled kicks bouncing along to a grainy yet chill sound. If “DUST” hints at structure, it gives way to the enigma of “LIFT UP,” and this, being the closing track, serves as an ambiguous farewell. There’s no “closure” effect; if at all, it leaves the listener suspended in its sonic limbo. It is layered with warbled voices filtering through the retro telephone or radio sounds as if tuning through fragments of forgotten conversations. It is a reminder that nahdoitagain isn’t interested in clear conclusions or textbook standards in music—only in creating experiences beyond traditional musical forms.
Listening to He Laughs at Things He is Confused About is anything but a passive experience; the album demands something from the listener in mind and body. It asks you to inhabit the spaces between sounds, to get lost in the layers and textures, and to connect with the abstract emotions the music evokes. A record for those willing to step outside of structured musicality and into a world where sound itself is the primary storyteller, nahdoitagain’s project embraces separatist music as both a theme and a method. In doing so, he transforms grey matter into something strangely beautiful, leaving listeners bewildered but undoubtedly entertained.
