ALBUM REVIEW: The Future Will Kill You by Walkingshoe

By: Derek Spencer

[Note: I apologize for the lack of content recently.  Sometimes the world asks you to spend your time doing things that are not writing music reviews of amateur bands for free. I obliged these demands– please do not hold it against me.  I will literally just review everything you send me, it is true.  But with over 500 albums sitting in my inbox currently, it will take some time.]

Cutting his way through swirling chords with a steady stream of layered vocals, hip-hop artist Walkingshoe emulates the work of Flying Lotus, A$AP Rocky, and trip-hop producers aplenty on his 2015 LP The Future Will Kill You.

With a series of clear assertions concerning the ephemeral nature of being human, The Future Will Kill You captures an all-too-pertinent digital age fear of what technology might bring to its creators. From referencing the mythical city of Atlantis on “Nora” to bluntly declaring “the body is a temporary state” on stand-out track “No One There”, Walkingshoe clarifies that the world he exists in is one in which only blurred lines and grey space stand between the perceived and the imagined. This doctrine is supported by a musical palette that draws on many sounds but uses a singular veneer to tie them all together. While the future may entail technological dread and death for the listener, Walkingshoe is committed to making society’s eminent destruction crystal clear.

PS- Great album cover. A+

ALBUM REVIEW: Mutiny I by Pompeius

By: Derek Spencer

Pompeius, named after the… singular masculine form of the ancient Roman name Pompeia(?), indicates on his bandcamp that listeners ought to, “_Drift away with me on a voyage to nowhere_”.  His 2015 release is titled “Mutiny I”. The album description warns readers that they are in for, “four water-logged songs chronicling a mutiny” and is accompanied by album art depicting a nondescript bay filled with high middle age ships.  Forgetting, for a moment, the water noises interspersed throughout the first track and signalling the end of the fourth and final track, the music impresses no nautical themes upon the listener, instead relying primarily on a palette of sounds common to the downtempo & chill house genres.

Despite the aesthetic contradictions of his bandcamp page, Pompeius manages to pull off a clean, tightly produced collection of songs.  What the tracks lack in literary ingenuity, they account for in well-planned compartmentalized EQ and punchy low-end beats.  Synths and noise-stabs pop into existence and dissipate, punctuating rhythmically familiar compositions.  Forsaken Overgrown is clearly the standout track, reworking itself several times over throughout the near-8-minute run time.  The opener Doldrums should also not be overlooked, if only for it’s sly incorporation of string bass samples.