18+
Trust
12 November 2014
Houndstooth
4.5 stars out of 5
One of hip hop’s hidden gems of 2013 was a mixtape by 18+,
very functionally titled Mixtap3
(which followed 2011’s M1xtape and
2012’s Mixta2e.) A year later, they’ve
given us their first proper LP, Trust,
and while it contains reworkings of several tracks from their mixtapes, it sees
them taking their game of abstract, left-field hip hop to a whole different
level. The Los Angeles-based duo of Justin Swinburne and Samia Mirza has
created an album that begins on the fringes of mainstream hip hop with the
relatively accessible “All the Time” and “Midnight Lucy” before veering off into
completely new universes. Trust is an
alternate dimension where bird samples populate multiple tracks without seeming
out of place. Somewhere at the intersection between The xx, HTRK, and Massive
Attack, 18+ are at the exciting cutting edge of the genre.
While the first four tracks, up to and including the creepy “Crow,”
are certainly no formula-driven derivations of your typical hip hop tracks, it’s
with the fifth track, “Jets,” where the envelope begins to be pushed. “Jets” is
a textbook example of how to completely ignore textbook examples and build
something entirely unique. “Drawl” sees Mirza tossing out rap signifiers in a
slow, unsettling voice that mimics the title. “Dry” begins by sounding like
something out of the ATL scene before vocal tricks that sound like a cassette
tape being eaten take over and propel everything into a delirious and illogical
mirror world of hip hop. “Nectar” is a broken reggae track that completely
unreggaes itself in a deconstruction worthy of the best of the dead French
philosophers. While Trust isn’t going
to please most hip hop aficionados, it certainly will create tremors that will
be felt and absorbed by the genre as a whole.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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