GutterPutter

The Covid pandemic is the inspiration that keeps on giving for a lot of musicians. The lockdowns all around the world provides more time for the artists to get themselves focused on creating new materials instead of being pre-occupied with the need to tour. These materials tend to explore the feeling of boredom, imprisonment, or fear with varied success & even as the pandemic is starting to slow down in severity, the albums continue to keep on coming. One specific latecomer in this trend is none other than Chicago-based rapper & critical darling Earl Sweatshirt – the member of Tyler, the Creator’s Odd Future collective who rose to fame on the back of his abstract rapping & strong underground tendencies. Coming off on a streak of acclaimed records with 2018’s Some Rap Songs being his latest release before now, excitement around his upcoming release is on a rise. The question stands thus: will he deliver the hype? 

The answer to the question is a definite yes. In a span of 24 minutes, Earl Sweatshirt delivers some astounding lines over an avalanche of synths, an ethereal kind of production, & a breath of fresh air in the trap beats. ‘Old Friends’ reflects on broken friendships & loneliness with a psychedelic production & a groovy bassline to accompany it while ‘2010’ go straight to the theme of substance abuse on top of twinkly synth notes & catchy hi-hats for the metronome. The titular track carries on the trap-influenced beats while Sweatshirt ruminates over the blurring of the line between the addiction relapse & the need to remain at home during lockdown. What I enjoy about the album is on its use of sound recordings for samples as it gives you food for thought around how the growing awareness around conspiracy theorists like the anti-vaccine movement puts pressure on the fragility of the state of mankind. You could make an argument that they add a sense of consciousness to the abstract rap album like in ‘Vision’, but I feel like that the album provides a sense of commentary on the friction between entertainment & art, reality & falsehood, or the government & the people. 

There are also some switching up in the musicality which adds a bit of freshness to the record. The soul vocal sample & the repetitive piano notes chords in ‘Tabula Rasa’ is one example of the flipping which works out very well as does the featured verses from the hip hop duo Armand Hammer that tackles the bitterness of being left alone. The interlude in ‘Lobby’ has the most blatant trap beats which synergises well with Earl Sweatshirt’s verse over his single-minded goal of getting high. ‘God Laughs’ takes a turnaround aside with the beats being much ghastlier in its sample without any drums while Earl Sweatshirt attempts to find signs to go back to his spiritual & ancestral roots. The similar theme can also be found in ‘Lye’, but with the overt conscious hip hop take that takes on the notion of identity with the complimentary slow jazz for the main instrumental. 

Finally, ‘Fire in the Hole’ is a solid way to end the album with Earl Sweatshirt making amends with the past – all the while throwing in shout-outs to his influences. Lines like “Peace to AKAI SOLO, the soldier”, “Threw on some Bootsy, I rather be with you when I’m high”, & “I leave town fast/ Out the dungeon like Outkast” are indeed simple, but they’re so layered in its nostalgic value that it ties the whole album up. With the pandemic changing everything about life as we know it now & with concerns around climate crisis, who knows if our time in peace will find itself disrupted more & more in the future?  

That is, once you’re over the first half of the song lies the obvious hole that I find with the album. The piano solo detracts from the overall atmosphere of the album & feels a bit ‘cheesy’ as per say since it just feels like it’s there just for the emotional value & not for the synergy with the rest of the samples. From there, it does feel like there’s a few more cracks with the album that’s overlooked. While I can’t deny that the production is great, there are moments where the futuristic psychedelia impression does come off as being a bit dizzying which, depending on how you feel about it, either puts you in a certain mood with the rest of the record or it makes it a bit irritating. I lean towards the latter group so it’s not the most rewarding listen to say the least. The most notable problem, however? It’s purely the short runtime that’s only around 22 minutes long if you exclude ‘Lobby’ and the second half of ‘Fire in the Hole’. That’s not to say that it’s wrong (after all, less could be more), but regardless of wherever it’s what Earl Sweatshirt would’ve preferred, it does leave you with a wish that the songs could be longer. Maybe it’s another worthwhile treasure for fans to take a listen to, but it doesn’t have a certain emotional resonance to make it a masterpiece nor does it offer the length to establish a kind of journey in terms with music structure.