Frank Ocean Returns With New Song “Memrise”: Listen

Christina Lee | November 28, 2014 5:07 am

For the past two years, Frank Ocean has mostly kept to himself. Last year he teamed with Pharrell, Danger Mouse and Tyler, the Creator to record new music, only to go back into hiding. (He likely camped out at some studio, though no one but him knows for sure.) This spring the musician said that he wrapped his sophomore effort, the follow-up to 2012’s channel ORANGE, only to leave that news at that. He posted a shirtless selfie, only to (try to) delete it.

Earlier today (November 28), though, Ocean returned from obscurity with a song posted to his Tumblr. Likely, this grainy, lo-fi version of the reportedly titled “Memrise” is a demo; here, it sounds as if he escaped Los Angeles to some cabin in the woods. Yet as is, the song is already pretty evocative. With a tap on his computer keyboard, his lovelorn falsetto hovers above a formless groove before it eventually lands on one of his most direct lyrics yet: “I memorized your body exposed / I could fuck you all night long from a memory alone.” Hear it below. Before “Memrise,” this screenshot of Ocean’s rumored new album tracklist has been circulating Twitter for what seems like forever. It lists an intro featuring Pharrell, features by Drake, Childish Gambino and The Weeknd, and a song title with his name, Romanized, in Katakana. (He’s shown before that he’s inspired by Asian art and culture, in his tour merch and music videos.) Initially, the possibility of all that seemed really exciting. Compared to how “Memrise” sounds, though, that tracklist now seems predictable. Thank goodness that, with this new release, Ocean’s proven that it’s likely fake.

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