The proggy tendencies of current underground hip hop have not gone unnoticed. As if to prove the point, here we have four long tracks in true Yes fashion featuring tempo changes extended instrumental sections and bucolic acoustic guitar loops. But in the place of Jon Anderson's shrill squeak, we have Paris-based Canadian MC, DJ and producer Buck 65's soothing, friendly voice in your ear. The album ushers you in with a grandstanding psychedelic intro and proceeds into woozy, bleary-eyed sonics, at times impressively grandiose, at others shuffling and funky or rigidly electro-like, with Buck 65 musing tangentially over "wishes that never came true" and "apparitions of angels". The four-part structure works well, forcing the listener to engage with the album as a whole or not at all, an admirably stubborn move for a major label hip hop artist, however atypical.
The proggy tendencies of current underground hip hop have not gone unnoticed. As if to prove the point, here we have four long tracks in true Yes fashion featuring tempo changes extended instrumental sections and bucolic acoustic guitar loops. But in the place of Jon Anderson’s shrill squeak, we have Paris-based Canadian MC, DJ and producer Buck 65’s soothing, friendly voice in your ear. The album ushers you in with a grandstanding psychedelic intro and proceeds into woozy, bleary-eyed sonics, at times impressively grandiose, at others shuffling and funky or rigidly electro-like, with Buck 65 musing tangentially over “wishes that never came true” and “apparitions of angels”. The four-part structure works well, forcing the listener to engage with the album as a whole or not at all, an admirably stubborn move for a major label hip hop artist, however atypical.
