absurd creature

ive only listened to the one x plastaz album that's on spotify but. its fucking dope

...and i'm not entirely sure whether nigeria counts as part of the anglosphere. but im gonna say it doesnt cause i like this song

here's one. Days Pass Strange by Steel-Tipped Dove and Aloe Vera came out earlier this month, and might be the first album i've listened to that i discovered through cohost!

i think the album cover (besides being just a funny reference) does a pretty good job of conveying the overall tone of the album, which, although it has its calmer moments, is generally pretty frantic. the opening track Demarcus Kain Needs Money, which is also my favorite on the album, provides a good introduction to the album, with its opening lines about killing your landlord mao-style, and its fast-paced and almost stress-inducing lyrics, delivery, and instrumental. the album continues its generally leftist bent throughout its runtime, and aloe vera's creativity in framing certain personal, political, and social issues is one of the highlights of the album for me - for example, on Moradian Messages, when he explains, "so when you say you ain't got time, trust me, you've got time: you took my father, mother, and sister's time, you took my grandmama time, my auntie time, my uncle time".

beyond his imaginative lyrics, aloe vera's anger shines through on the album. a generalized anger about the injustices of capitalism and racism weaves itself through the whole album, with specific shots taken at: anthony fantano, leftists who don't do the dishes, aloe vera's landlord, the necessity of pandering to white culture in order to sustain an artistic career, etc; this anger peaks near the end of My Angel, where his verse descends into a passionate monologue describing his anger with the white lens through which black art is so often viewed and commodified, and his childhood dreams of being a guitarist, which were crushed when his parents couldn't afford guitar lessons. This is immediately followed by My Angel (Reprise), which consists of a recorded discussion between himself and another individual about the themes (and emotions) conveyed in the previous song, and their ambitions of creating a black space for black art. Finally, the last track, Days Pass Strange, is a kind of manifesto of what the album stands for, laying out the need for actual action among people who claim to stand for anything revolutionary - especially in terms of helping the people who need it most. the song, and the album, then ends with a repeated chorus of "every day a blessing, every breath a threat".

i've said this before, but i don't really consider these writeups to be reviews - first of all, because they're not really comprehensive enough for that label, but also because i'm not really trying to make a case for any of these albums one way or another, just writing my general impressions. in terms of an album like this, i think that frees me up a little bit in terms of my writing, for a couple reasons. first of all, and most obviously, i think it would be kind of arrogant to throw up my thoughts in a way that carries any broader pretensions when talking about an album that is so critical of the kind of perspective i carry being so dominant in discussions about art. the second reason is that this album blends together the personal, the political and the emotional in a way that makes them difficult to disentangle, and so in writing anything about it it forces you to engage with the artist directly, rather than through any kind of facade that might be thrown over a less intimate project. i don't really know how to close this one out 'cause this in an album that kinda makes u think about shit.