The passing of an artist is always a difficult thing to manoeuvre, particularly when they were in the midst of creating new work. The late 2010s saw a string of high-profile deaths, with the likes of Avicii, Prince and controversial Florida rapper, Xxxtentacion, all coming to pass in the space of a few years. Mac Miller’s posthumous album, Circles, hit stores and streaming sites on Friday, following his death by accidental overdose in 2018, and has since returned the topic of posthumous releases to the spotlight. The debate rages on as to whether they indeed represent important continuations of legacy, or are instead a dishonest, insincere means through which labels and estates can continue to profit. Whatever your position on the matter, Circles, stands forthright as a touching, reflective, and necessary point of musical closure.
Generally, an audible distinction can be made between what should and what shouldn’t have been released; the perceptible differentiation between what required fine-tuning and what was cobbled together, fabricated almost from scratch. Whilst Viola Beach’s self-titled debut album came just months after all four members of the Warrington band were killed in a tragic car accident, its release felt a fitting tribute to a young, promising group who had a polished body of work ready to give to the world. Sitting at the other end of the moral spectrum, Xxxtentacion’s Skins arrived as collection of ten seemingly unfinished tracks, none of which doing justice to the artist’s undeniable, albeit deeply troubled, talent. Only perpetuating the controversy surrounding the rapper, who had been accused of multiple counts of domestic abuse, one has to question the true reasoning behind such an untimely and debatably inappropriate release.
Fortunately, Mac Miller’s first, and final, posthumous release is a poignant and affecting concluding musical chapter in the discography of an exceptionally talented, and equally well-loved artist. A ‘companion’ record to, debatably, his career-best work on 2018s Grammy-nominated Swimming, the album continues to ponder starkly ideas of loneliness, ambition and, somewhat hauntingly, life’s inevitable end. In an Instagram, post made nine days before the album’s release, Miller’s family gave a moving and important statement on the matters which so often call posthumous albums into question, describing ‘a complicated process that has no right answer.’ Jon Brion, renowned composer and producer, took on the challenging task of completing what was an almost-finished 12-track LP in a way that acted to propagate Miller’s sonic legacy, and in that task, he excelled.
Each thoughtfully well-produced song offers a pertinent new take on a new, emotive subject matter. Title track ‘Circles’ provides important context for the rest of the record, with Mac coming to peace with the cyclicity of life, and the impossibility of changing its outcomes. The quiet, pensive instrumental begs that the lyrics are fully comprehended, and pre-empts the collection of deeply reflective tracks. Other highlights come in the form of the fittingly paradoxical ‘Good News,’ which sees Mac unravel his feelings of isolation and depression over a plucky, string-led instrumental, and penultimate track, ‘Surf.’ This track, again, see Mac tackle feelings of solitude, as introspectively slurs, “But it’s more when I’m standing in crowds / That I’m feeling most on my own." However, this song in particular illustrates a deeply hopeful sentiment that runs throughout the record. The last line of the tracks laid-back refrain, "There’s water in the flower, let’s grow," seems to highlight a definite optimism in Mac’s thinking which seemed far less apparent on the similarly meditative Swimming.
Although we will never have the opportunity to hear Miller continue to bloom into the fabled artist he looked destined to become, this record provides a real sense of closure, not just for the listener, but for Miller himself. In finding a happy juxtaposition of optimism and fatalism, Miller seemed to have reached a point of acceptance in his life. Although his untimely passing is deeply saddening, the way Miller deals with his emotions on this record, his final ponderings on life, act to indicate a real sense of peace. The release of music posthumously is an impossibly difficult and often divisive issue, but, credit to Mac Miller, his family, and his friends, this album acts as a truly fitting farewell.