Luke Titus is a young drumming prodigy from Chicago. He was such a good drummer at such a young age that he joined The Blue Man Group at age 15 and went on tour with them. After working behind the scenes for a few years and collaborating with the likes of Noname, Phoelix, and Raevyn Lenae, he finally dropped his debut album, Plasma, on Sooper Records in 2020 at the age of 23. Now he’s back with a new collaborative album with Brooklyn artist Cisco Swank, Some Things Take Time.

Cisco Swank is a producer/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist from Brooklyn who is also fairly young in his career. He has a few singles under his belt, and released his first solo EP, Pursuit Of, in 2020. It was in 2020 that the two musicians found each other online and began exchanging ideas. Now that they have a full-length album together, it’s easy to see what drew them together. Some Things Take Time has a fascinating sound to it, drawing heavily on a foundation of bebop jazz, where the two can really cook on drums and keyboards, but then fleshed out by bringing in their loves of R&B, hip hop, psychedelic and pop. It feels like a lot of this album was born out of jazz jam sessions, and then chopped up, flipped, layered with other instrumentation, and then drawn back out into its final form. It’s an album that falls somewhere between Kariem Riggins and Tortoise, but then it becomes its own thing as the duo starts to bring in such varied guests as Saba, Malaya, Phoelix, Braxton Cook, and Femdot. Depending on where you stop and start the album, you’ll feel like you’re listening to a hip hop album, a neo-soul album, or a wildly experimental jazz-fusion album. The truth is, you’re listening to all of this, and when you listen to everything in order, it all starts to make sense and gets really exciting with each subsequent track. That’s because you have two top notch musicians who are really pushing each other and getting excited about the possibilities and taking the music in some really wild and unexpected directions. They are then anchoring the album with these pop/hip/R&B collaborations that gives you something to hold on to that feels somewhat familiar. The whole thing is a exhilirating ride.

Some Things Take Time is a very exciting album from two young artists who are just beginning to scratch the surface of what they are capable of. This is energetic and experimental and takes you in different directions, but it’s also soulful and clearly made with a lot of love.