The prolific and incomparably articulate American rapper Ian Matthias Bavitz returns with another sharpener, this time an intelligent, irony-laden, highly detailed concept-style album dissecting absurdist, infinitely excessive consumerism about an organisation offering “lifestyle- and industry-specific applications designed to curate a desired multi-experience”. It’s his first since 2020’s playfully acerbic Spirit World Field Guide. With 18 tracks overall, it’s a full delivery of inventive beats, sounds and wordflow, opening with the parody advertisement intro, The ITS Way, leading swiftly into one of the standouts, Mindful Solutionism. Living Curfew is another, joined by fellow rapper Billy Woods, whose style is mellower, as is Kyanite Toothpick (with Hanni El Khatib), Infinity Fill Goosedown, the slower menace of Salt and Pepper Squid, the endless food-themed inventiveness of Time Moves Differently Here, the story of a childhood run-in with the A-Team’s Mr. T on 100 Feet Tall, the cooing wit of Pigeonometry to the the brilliantly flowing, but also melancholy jazz trumpet-inflected By The River. “I’ve been doing laps of the lost worlds,” he raps on the strangely catchy All City Nerve Map, “I can draw a map to the raw nerve.” It’s a mind-boggling world of dazzling wordplay, a stimulating journey of rich cultural reference and invention. Out on Rhymesayers Entertainment.
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