The Top 30 Albums Of 2019 (So Far): 070 Shake - 'Modus Vivendi'

"Modus Vivendi is Balbuena's chronicle." - Cyclone

The debut album from 070 Shake (aka Danielle Balbuena) is the cult sleeper of 2020 so far. The New Jersey rapper/singer, signed to Kanye West's GOOD Music, captured wide attention with her contributions to Ye's various Wyoming Sessions projects – crucially elevating his track Ghost Town. But Modus Vivendi is Balbuena's chronicle.

Balbuena is an auteur pop star, epitomising an aesthetic as distinct as that of Siouxsie Sioux, Aaliyah, Lana Del Rey and art-rappers like Travis Scott – with her Auto-tuned vocals, intense melodies, heightened musicality, and emotional swells all expressing a queer, gothic existentialism. 

Somehow she transforms ennui into rhapsody. Notably, Balbuena has worked with offbeat studio collaborators in Canadian indie-rocker Dave Hamelin and Mike Dean. 

Many of the highlights on Modus Vivendi have aired as singles: the nocturnal electro rumination Nice To Have, euphoric Latin anthem Morrow, liberatory bop Under The Moon, and recent Guilty Conscience – an '80s New Wave ode that might play in a lonely, neon-lit alley bar. Balbuena also reinterprets the traditional American song In The Pines (retitled as The Pines), associated with Lead Belly and Nirvana, as her own grungey, psychic drama. Singular.