Nocturne

Nocturne is the ninth studio album by British recording artist Shell Ruin. It was released on July 25, 2016, via Fusion Records. Ruin began writing and recording while in the midst of the promotional cycle her previous album, Play, which was released in 2015 after a four year hiatus and became the best-selling album of Ruin's extensive career.

Ruin described the release of the album as "transitioning from day to night", the day-time being in reference to her previous album. In comparison to the disco-inspired pop sound of Play, Ruin intentionally wanted to create a darker soundscape. The album explores experimental R&B and trap music but with a pop sensibility. Much of the album was written during late night recording sessions where Ruin was inspired by her on-going battle with anxiety, the complexities of emotionally detached sex and her new-found fame since returning to music.

To promote the album, Ruin announced she would be making two songs available to stream every Sunday in the run-up to the album's release. Dubbed New Music Sundays, the songs were exclusively available to to Apple Music and BLOC subscribers, with each song having its own cover art. The covers were designed by Belgian artist Peter de Potter, a frequent collaborator of fashion designer Raf Simons. The album's cover art was photographed by Steven Klein.

Development
In 2015, Ruin worked with singer and rapper Kenya on the song "Lucid Dreams", which would become the final single from its parent studio album. The following year, Kenya joined Ruin for her Playroom World Tour as the opening act. During this time Ruin and Kenya embarked on impromptu late night writing sessions, later setting up a travelling recording studio which also acted as a tour bus. Musically, Ruin was initially inspired by Kenya's album Living (2016), which she said was her favourite album of that year. Ruin started listening to artists such as Rae Sremmurd, Kaytranada, PartyNextDoor, The Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, and Travis Scott. Their music would become the soundtrack to Ruin's aftershow parties whilst on tour, as well as being central to her personal playlists.

Ruin described the release of the album as "transitioning from day to night", the day-time being in reference to her previous album Play. In comparison to the disco-inspired pop sound of her previous album, Ruin intentionally wanted to create a darker soundscape. Sonically, the album explores experimental R&B and trap music but with a pop sensibility. Nocturne is defined as being a musical composition that is evocative of the night. The album was recording during late night sessions, mostly while Ruin was travelling the world on tour. Ruin wanted the album to have a "chilled, night time vibe". Much of the album was written during late night recording sessions where Ruin was inspired by her on-going battle with anxiety, the complexities of emotionally detatched sex and her new-found fame since returning to music. Ruin has cited Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope (1997) and Madonna's American Life (2003) as inspirations, namely because of their ability to create more artistically challenging and personal albums following periods of commercial success.

In describing her previous album Play and Nocturne, Ruin said the two were like "day and night". The album's lyrical themes deal with the complexities of love, sex, religion and fame. Discussing the album with FADER magazine, Ruin said "you've heard of break-up records - well, this is a breakdown record. I wrote it during a short period where I was feeling particularly low. The album is the soundtrack to those moments where you just spent the night partying with friends, then come home and face the loneliness. Those moments where you hooked up with some guy and realise it doesn't fill the empty void. I feel like with my last album, I was selling a fake happiness just because that's what I believed and that's what I thought people wanted to hear." Ruin changed her traditional way of writing that she usually adopted when working with friend and collaborator Alesha. The lyrics were written in a more "loose, confessional" way much like rap songs.

Title and art direction
A nocturne is defined as being a musical composition that is evocative of the night. The album was recording during late night sessions, mostly while Ruin was travelling the world on tour. Ruin wanted the album to have a "chilled, night time vibe". Alongside the front cover art, Ruin created a single cover for each song on the album. The art direction was overseen by Belgian artist Peter de Potter, who had previously been a longstanding collaborator of fashion designer Raf Simons and recently created the cover art for Kanye West's The Life of Pablo (2016).

Speaking about the importance of Jamie Reid's iconic artwork for the Sex Pistols, De Potter praised Reid's output as "the work of a man speaking his mind, not of someone catering to an entertainment industry." Ruin applied similar descriptions to his work for Nocturne. Following her previous album, Ruin wanted to create a distinct visual that would become synonymous with her new sound. The photography for the artwork was overseen by American fashion photographer Steven Klein. The album's front cover features Ruin in a dark room which is lit by the city lights and buildings outside. On July 4, Klein confirmed via Twitter that the photo was taken in Ruin's apartment in central New York.

Promotion
Ruin began discussing the album in early 2016. She told Notion magazine "There's something about the new music that feels different. After the success of this album it would be easy to make a 'part two' but I'm very consciously trying to create the next sound, the new vision. It's what I've always done." Additionally she said "If I'm on a creative wave [...] From the songs I've made, it feels like a summer record."

Details of the album were formally announced on June 15, almost one year to the day after the announcement of Ruin's previous album, Play. Ruin announced she would be making two songs available to stream every Sunday in the run-up to the album's release. Dubbed New Music Sundays, the songs were exclusively available to to Apple Music and BLOC subscribers, with each song having its own cover art, designed by Belgian artist Peter De Potter.

On June 19, 2016, Ruin released "Fear of Clowns (Prelude)" and "Same Parties", also confirming the latter to be the album's lead single. On June 26, "WTHAMF" (an abbreviation for "Where the Hell Are My Friends") and "Dopamine" were made available to stream. On July 3, Ruin released "Anybody's Flower (Interlude)" alongside "Velvet Glove" and "Good Place". Following a two week absence from social media, Ruin announced the release of "Milk", "Ghosts" and "Angelhood (Interlude)" on July 22. On August 1, "Emilio" and "Daddy Issues" appeared on Apple's Best of the Week playlist. On August 7, the night before the album's release, "At Night" and "God Help Us All" appeared online. "Cars / Boys (Interlude)" and "Heathens" were released less than 24 hours later on August 8 when Nocturne was available to stream and purchase worldwide.

Ruin covered the August edition of FADER magazine, as well as the September issue of Australia's Rolling Stone. In comparison to her previous album, Ruin didn't promote the album on television. In October, Ruin embarked on the Nocturne Club Tour, sponsored by Cîroc. The tour saw Ruin perform at small bars in London, New York and Paris.

Singles
"Same Parties" was released as the album's lead single on July 25, 2016. The song debuted at number two on the Official Singles Chart, and rose to the number one spot the following week. As of October 2016, the song had been certified Platinum with sales of 535,708. The second single "WTHAMF" was released on October 24, 2016.

Critical reception
Nocturne received positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 85, based on 35 reviews. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield dubbed it both a mess and masterpiece: "This is a messy album that feels like it was made that way on purpose [...] Ruin just drops broken pieces of his psyche all over the album and challenges you to fit them together." Corbin Reiff of The A.V. Club opined that "it feels far different from any of the tightly constructed, singular works of Ruin’s past," asserting instead that "as a beautiful, messy, mixed-up collection of 16 songs, it's a brilliant document." Writing for The New York Times, Jon Caramanica stated, "Ruin [...] has perfected the art of aesthetic and intellectual bricolage, shape-shifting in real time and counting on listeners to keep up," concluding that "this is Tumblr-as-album, the piecing together of divergent fragments to make a cohesive whole." Alicia Adejobi of International Business Times rated it 5 out of 5 stars, saying that it demonstrates Ruin's strong vocals tackling different moods, slick production, infectious beats, sexually heightened lyrics and "an insight into the singer's soul", concluding that "Ruin's foray into hip-hop and R&B feels natural". Glenn Gamboa rated it an A grade in Newsday and 4 out of 4 stars in AM New York, saying that "Ruin's brand of R&B bridges the gap between Frank Ocean and The Weeknd, but is clearly Ruin's creation, one that may take her to unexpected new heights". Elijah Watson of Complex magazine said "Nocturne is full of atmosphere. Ruin creates a sonic world for her deepest secrets to unfold in the form of slick vocals and dark lyrics". He praised the album's experimentation, stating that, like Alesha and Aurora Reed, "Ruin is pushing into new territory both vocally and sonically." Andrew Milne of MusicOMH called it a "genre-blending bedroom confessional" and a "soulful, sexy and captivating" album that shows "experimentation, honesty, passion".

Ray Rahman of Entertainment Weekly was somewhat less enthusiastic, calling Nocturne "an ambitious album that finds the singer struggling to compact her many identities into one weird, uncomfortable, glorious whole [...] Like the woman herself, the album is emotional, explosive, unpredictable, and undeniably thrilling." Alexis Petridis was more critical in The Guardian, finding it "at turns, rambling, chaotic, deeply underwhelming, impressively audacious, and completely infuriating," suggesting that "[i]t appears to have had ideas thrown at it until it feels messy and incoherent" despite concluding that "when Nocturne is good, it's very good indeed." The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick wrote, "Nocturne is certainly rich in musical scope, chock a block with inspired ideas," but also felt the work to be "so self-involved it crosses over into self-delusion, marked by such a tangible absence of perspective and objectivity it is as if [Ruin] has actually lost sight of the elemental basics of her art." Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot felt that "Nocturne sounds like a work in progress rather than a finished album." In another mixed review, PopMatters's Evan Sawdey wrote that "Nocturne's obscurities and eccentricities make it ripe for endless dissection by Ruin's fans and followers, but make no mistake: this album is flawed, it’s problematic, and most of all, it’s no masterpiece."

Commercial response
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Track listing

 * 1) "Fear of Clowns (Prelude)"
 * 2) "Same Parties"
 * 3) "WTHAMF"
 * 4) "Dopamine"
 * 5) "Anybody's Flower" (Interlude)
 * 6) "Velvet Glove"
 * 7) "Good Place"
 * 8) "Milk"
 * 9) "Ghosts" (featuring Medvsa)
 * 10) "Angelhood" (Interlude)
 * 11) "Emilio"
 * 12) "Daddy Issues"
 * 13) "At Night"
 * 14) "God Help Us All" (featuring Alesha)


 * Notes


 * "Fear of Clowns (Prelude)" contains a sample of "Dark Lines" by Gossip and "Pure Imagination" from the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
 * "God Help Us All" contains backing vocals by the Andraé Crouch Choir and a spoken sample from "Act of Contrition" by Madonna.