Nocturne

Nocturne
Studio album by Shell Ruin
Released	August 8, 2016
Recorded	March 2016 – July 2016 Jungle City Studios, (New York City) Westlake Recording Studios, (Los Angeles) Sandra Gale Studios, (Los Angeles) SOTA Studios, (Toronto) Twin Studios, (Paris) Windmark Recording Studios, (Santa Monica)
Genre	Experimental R&B · trap · electronic
Label	Fusion Records
Producer	Shell Ruin (exec.) Alesha
Shell Ruin chronology
Play (2015) Nocturne (2016) –

Nocturne is the ninth studio album by British recording artist Shell Ruin. It was released by Fusion Records on August 8, 2016. Ruin described the release of the album as "transitioning from day to night", the day-time being in reference to her previous album, Play, which was released to critical and commercial success after a four year hiatus from music.

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.

Nocturne was an immediate success upon release, both commercially and critically. Andrew Milne of MusicOMH called it a "genre-blending bedroom confessional" and a "soulful, sexy and captivating" album that shows "experimentation, honesty, passion". The album reached number one on the Official Albums Chart, while the record's lead single "Same Parties" also charted at number one on the Singles Chart the following week. The album also houses the Platinum certified singles "WTHAMF", "Dopamine", "Emilio" and "Daddy Issues".

Ruin toured the record extensively, starting with a Club Tour that saw her visit several nightclubs around Europe. In early 2017, Ruin embarked on the Nocturne World Tour, her first theatre tour which was billed as "an intimate experience". Ruin later added stadium shows as part of the second leg of the tour in summer 2017. The tour became Ruin's most successful live endeavour to date, grossing £120.8 million at the box office.

Background and development

Ruin released her first studio album in five years, Play, in the fourth quarter of 2015. The album was a critical and commercial success which saw Ruin become a mainstream artist again after half a decade out of the Top 10. 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 started conceptualising the album while on tour – curating playlists and moodboards with songs and visuals that inspired her. She wrote the majority of the album using the Notepad feature on her iPhone 6, while the rest of the songs were finalised whilst in the recording booth. Recording sessions for the album began in March 2016. Ruin travelled between New York, Los Angeles and Paris to complete the album in order to work with the sound engineers and mixers of her choice. Nocturne was produced entirely by Ruin, with additional uncredited production by frequent collaborator Alesha on "God Help Us All".

Concept and artwork

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 detached sex and her new-found fame since returning to music.

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.

The photography for the artwork was overseen by American fashion photographer Steven Klein who had previously directed Ruin's music video for "Feel Alive". The album's front cover features Ruin in a dark room which is lit by the city lights and buildings outside. The album booklet features photographs of the city surroundings, drenching in hues of neon pink, blue and green. On July 4, Klein confirmed via Twitter that the front cover photograph was taken in Ruin's town house in central London. The album packaging was overseen by British design studio Big Active who had previously designed all of Ruin's art direction.

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. Ruin later expressed her dissatisfaction with the release strategy, stating that Fusion Records had wanted to capitalise on the rise of streaming platforms. She told Rolling Stone magazine in 2017, "I'm more old school, I wasn't happy about it". Ruin re-released the album to mark almost two million copies sold, subtitled the Diamond Edition, the album featured a full version of the opening track, retitled "Clowns", and the new songs "Rich Kids", "Cars / Boys" and "Drama".

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. In early 2017, Ruin embarked on the Nocturne World Tour, her first theatre tour which was billed as "an intimate and live experience". Ruin later announced plans to visit stadiums around Europe in the summer of 2017.

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 and peaked at number two on the Official Singles Chart. The third single "Dopamine" was released on December 12, 2016. The single suffered poor promotion and debuted at number five on the chart. Ruin released "Emilio" as the fourth single on February 13, 2017. The song was retitled "Emilio (Fifty Shades Darker)" and became the theme song for the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey. "Daddy Issues" was released as the fifth single from the album on May 8, 2017.

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 her 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 14 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

Standard tracklisting

1. "Fear of Clowns (Prelude)"
2. "Same Parties"
3. "WTHAMF"
4. "Dopamine"
5. "Velvet Glove"
6. "Anybody's Flower (Interlude)"
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)

Diamond Edition bonus tracks

1. "Clowns (Extended)"
2. "Rich Kids"
3. "Drama"

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.

Artwork

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  Front cover

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  Back cover

Charts

Chart (2016)	Peak position
Urapopstar Top 40 Albums Chart	1