Jul. 21, 2010 - Issue #770: Draw It Yourself
Playfight
{recordings_bands_mg} Playfight {/recordings_bands_mg}
Old Ugly Recording Co., 2010
3
Last winter, I went to something called the Old Ugly Circus. It was a variety show featuring a local gang of weirdos at the Avenue Theatre. It was the coldest day of the year so nobody was really there. The point is, they still were. And so was the candy. I received a Halloween-sized bag of Reese's Cups for showing up. Somehow, this all seems to sum up this label perfectly: they harness cold sounds, Edmontonian conceits and a surprising sweetness, trading on lo-fi, emo (as in emotion) and rap, but always in an atypical way. These ranges are expressed on each of the rapping contingent of the label's new cassette releases.Top banana The Joe, for all his technical skills, has taken a turn for the endlessly jokey on PLAYFIGHT, rapping about wrestling with his siblings and not having any friends over commercial rap beats. Some of it is funny, some of it isn't. The focus of The Joe (and that of the label's other rappers) seems to be satirizing popular rap. "Without this Fire" (over a warbling Lil Wayne track)in particular has great verses that focus on family discourse and feature intricate rhymes, but elsewhere "Hire Me," a screamed Lil Jon parody about job hunting, is unlistenable. I wish this album was done without the constant self-conscious need to reference what is being rapped over. The Joe can rap, so why can't he just be himself?
This is part one of a three-part review. Next part | last part
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