Some of the most cutting-edge stuff currently being made centres on the Los Angeles hip hop scene spearheaded by Flying Lotus and the Odd Future crew, artists whose restlessly inventive approach is also mirrored in the space-age soundscapes favoured by fellow LA artists such as Gonjasufi, Ras G and the African Space Program and Thundercat.
One of the acts closest to that milieu, spiritually if not geographically, are Seattle’s Ishmael Butler and Tendai Maraire, whose magnificent 2011 debut Black Up was one of the finest hip-hop albums of recent years. Their second album, Else Majesty, expands on their established avant-hip-hop template and finds the duo creating a unique sonic identity that is very much their own. Divided into seven “suites” and variously incorporating elements of psychedelia, jazz, funk, soul and dream-pop, Else Majesty is a heady trip that frequently dazzles with its ingenuity.
From the atmospheric ambience of ‘Dawn Over Luxor’ to the thumping beats of ‘Ishmael’ and the surreal mood of ‘Colluding Oligarchs’, this is an imaginative and adventurous album to savour. Indeed, the perfectly realised experimentalism of tracks like ‘Harem Aria’ and ‘Noirotic Neoromantics’ make Else Majesty the kind of album Kanye West no doubt wishes he could make.
Indeed, if you’re in search of a genuinely beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, then you’ve come to the right place.
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