Breathlessly brilliant warp-speed hip-hop with a cyberpunk, electronica and house music soundtrack by the trio fronted by rapper and actor Daveed Diggs, set in a sci-fi dystopian universe of multiple characters and stories. Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson provide the pulsating music on release the latter dryly describes as a “CD compilation you’ve found in a used bin in the future”. It’s in part inspired by William Gibson’s prescient 1984 novel Neuromancer, which foretells of dangerous AI, and a “corporatist, fascist dystopia”, but it’s Diggs’s delivery that is most supremely striking, deftly articulate and lightning fast, portraying a gallery of first-person character narrators in a style like a runaway train. Perhaps of all his award-winning Hollywoood and other roles including in Hamilton the musical, this is most akin to the post-apocalyptic train TV series Snowpiercer. His delivery and music could be the soundscape of that train. There’s a rich mix of other influences and samples on tracks such as Code (using the Afrofuturist documentary The Last Angel of History), and also guest appearances, including guitarist Nels Cline on the outro to Dodger (titled “Malleus”), labelmates Cartel Madras on Mirrorshades, pt. 2, rapper/actor Tia Nomore on Scams, as well the wordiest of wordsmiths Aesop Rock on Welcome Home Warrior. Diggs above all others though is bang on form with his intricate lyrics and rapid-fire rapping. Dominator, Change The Channel, Run It, all the way to 20th track Ask What Happened, in which a socially conscious MC lists human atrocities, the picture is a chaotic society of dysfunctional people at war with the system society built. A mind-boggling, fearfully stimulating, heart-racing release. Out on Sub Pop Records.
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