While his moves might not earn him a role in the New York City Ballet’s next production, Kool A.D. still stays light enough on his feet to sweep his pirouetting partner off hers. In the new video for 51‘s ”Al Green,” half of Das Racist‘s lyrical duo spits another quality American rap song™ and responds to urgent text messages, all while his twirling ballerina friend stays on point and in-orbit.

And things don’t end once the send button’s been hit, either. Having his thumbs free just means that Victor gets to bust out some fanciful moves of his own and get down with his bad self. Fortunately for everyone though, our boy left his leotard in his locker. 51 is still available for stream and free download over at Мишка records to boot, so you should probably head on over there when you’re done watching.

Boxing prospect, Brooklyn representative and sponsored Mishka figher Zachary “Zungry” Ochoa will be fighting at the Roseland Ballroom August 2^nd He’s striving to achieve greatness and is working hard at bumping his professional record up to 2-0. Follow him on twitter for some inspirational quotes and updates on his rigorous training. Plus do it because I said so. Young and ready, we’re fully backing Zungry on this upcoming bout and confident that he’ll be holding it down for all the Worldwide Death Adders out there!

It’s been almost a week since UFC 149, and it was declared an utter disappointment by UFC President Dana White. I was unable to catch it, but I was receiving texts, reading tweets, and drinking Seltzer Lemon Lime all while walking home from work. A fantastic way to end ones Saturday night I think. Hey, Renan Barão defeated Urijah Faber for the interim Bantamweight title. That’s pretty fantastic. The Faber/Cruz rubber match has been scrapped, so expect Barão vs. Cruz (The Bantamweight Champion) as soon as Cruz’ ACL heels up. Feel better buddy.

It’s being reported that UFC Heavyweight veteran Frank “Glassjaw” Mir will be facing Daniel “The Broken Fist” Cormier in late October. Interesting to note that this fight will take place on a Strikeforce card held on Showtime. Hopefully we’ll some great cross promotion fights down the line, at the moment, the only interesting stipulation is Mir on a SF card. Cormier will be joining the UFC’s heavyweight division after the fight. I personally think Mir is risking a lot here. Fighting this guy cannot ever be a safe career choice by anyone’s standards honestly. I would not want his hand broken by my jaw or face any time soon. Cormier, the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix champion, is 10-0 in MMA, 7-0 in Strikeforce, and is a NCAA Division 1 wrestler. With an impressive career thus far, it’s bound to shake things up in the already monstrous UFC heavyweight division.

A bit closer than that is UFC 152, where we’ll witness Michael Bisping and Brian Stann step into an octagon and fight to the death. Or fight until the rounds are up, or the ref stops it, or one man gives up via submission or knock out, or someone gets knocked out, etc. That’s a bit more realistic than my opening statement, but that’s already a given. Bisping has given us this and this. We’re thankful for both of those. He’s also quite the mouthy lad, and confident that he can defeat Anderson Silva. Brian Stann is an outstanding U.S. Marine with knock out power and this face. I’m not sure if Dana White feels the winner will be the number one contender quite yet, but it’ll certainly be a big step up on the imaginary ladder that exists in the Middleweight division.

He might not have went and bought him a suit today that costed him a lot of money today, but the latest from longtime Мишка homie Prince Terrence is definitely for the children- the Children of the Underground, that is.

Released under the Hussle Club moniker and through Scion AV, Children of the Underground is jam-packed with all the primal, subterranean sounds you’d expect from that camp, and, even if it doesn’t have any songs about mole people,  is a gritty and genre-bending blend of industrial and post-punk aesthetics paired with stupidly catchy club beats. The whole thing is up streaming at Scion AV’s website, so let’s all be good little boys and girls, crawl back below ground, and give it a spin.

Stream Hussle Club’s Children of the Underground (Click Here)

Michael Phelps (Born 1985)

Vs.

The Dream Team (Barcelona 1992)

A Choice of Yours of this magnitude is the type of thing that comes along only once every four years. For real, this is on some “unstoppable force vs immovable object” type ish. Playing the role of the former is Phelps, you know, the guy whose eight golds in ’08 make up the greatest individual Olympic performance of all time, who also has more big shiny yellow things (14) than anyone ever, and who’s just a pair of top three finishes away from making history again with the highest career medal count.* And, if for whatever reason you didn’t know, he takes rips like he doesn’t give a fuck (and why would you, with that lung capacity?).

But this isn’t going to be a cakewalk, because the best team in modern sports history is cast as the stoic monolith in this showdown. While Phelps had a few close calls en route to his eight different prime podium spots, the United States Men’s Basketball team did everything long distance in ’92 Barcelona. Beating their opponents by an average of 44 points, the Dream Team, the first instance of NBA players participating in Olympic Basketball, was like the US bringing a pack of wolves to the puppy bowl. Their roster including Jordan, Magic, The Admiral, Drexler, Malone, Bird, reads like the all-time team in NBA Live. They were so deep that management told Isiah Thomas, a shoe-in Hall of Famer and cornerstone of two of the league’s last four champions to piss off- largely because half the roster didn’t like him- without missing a beat.

So, what’ll it be today folks? The shiniest medal case in Olympic history and the swimmer who shattered one of sports’ most untouchable records, or the roster capable of capturing our very dreams? From Beijing to Barcelona, and the water to the hardwood, once again, the choice is yours…

*OLYMPIC SPOILER ALERT*

Between me submitting this and its posting, Phelps has gone on to tie the record with a silver in the 200m Butterfly, then break it anchoring the US victory in the 4×200 Relay. So there’s that…

Equitant – Body Vehement (2012) [Black Montanas] // Grade: B+

The EBM-Techno engine known as Equitant is powered by Texan Ray Heflin who, after 3 years releases his fifth full-length entitled Body Vehement on Black Montanas. Although three years since the last release, Dynamism in 2009, time has not softened his sound or dulled his production. Instead, Body Vehement sounds like the time has been taken to intensify the sound and the production sounds even sharper.

Equitant lacks 100% of the cheese factor that a lot of the modern EBM has gotten itself wrapped up in. Where most of the modern EBM scene sounds like nothing more than bad progressive trance from the late ’90s with distorted vocals as the cherry precariously perched on top, Equitant (luckily!) sounds nothing like this and missed the bad trance boat by a mile. Instead, Equitant stays relevant by connecting to more underground electro, EBM, and dark techno. Equitant does what it does well like a finely crafted machine that has become perfected by innovation within the structure rather than frivolous trending and prototypical failures.

Body Vehement would best be described as existing in the space between heavy synthesizer based ’80s EBM like early Frontline Assembly (think bass and synth on Corrosion era FLA) meets Terence Fixmer or David Carretta’s banging dark techno that sounds equally at home on a white smoke machined EBM night as it would in a intense techno set. This heavily synthesized sound is then illuminated by guest vocals by Lea X, Bastian, Illumine Concrete and Yasmin Gate (Ex-Dirty Princess for which Equitant in July 2009 produced her debut track called “You Know What I Want” for David Carretta’s Space Factory Records, along with other collaborators: T Raumschmiere, Ikki, Douglas McCarthy, Migue Garcia and Petra Flur). As an extra bonus, the Body Vehement Remixes will be out in October 2012 on Black Montanas with remixes by David Carretta & Workerpoor, Yan Wagner, People Theatre, Adriano Canzian, Illumine Concrete, Romain Frequency, Strange Connection, Ba, Indira Paganotto, Dylan McBride, Fabio Scognamiglio, Tkuz, Jordan Passmore, Daniel Olarte, Elite!, Lia Organa, Skinovthenight, Ivan Overdriver, Bhasmantam Macumba, Cole Black and Equitant himself.

The beautiful streak continues! 2012 has been the year of the Basedgod, no lie, no boutros. Perhaps in December he will release a mixtape that will break the seventh seal and usher in the apocalypse with its overwhelming awesomeness. Just saying. So yeah, Obama Basedgod is a 17 track affair that dropped yesterday. There was actually a relatively long period of fallow between this and his last tape (almost two weeks!) and he clearly took some time to write some songs.

Opener and title track “Obama Basedgod” and follow up “Political Warfare” are about as constructed and mannered as you’ll get with a post 6 Kiss Lil B, with choruses and hooks. “Obama Basedgod” finds him flying through all kinds of different flows, modulating his voice, and generally not freestyling. Pretty interesting stuff. The rest of the tape is a little more predictable, but hey: I always welcome more Basedgod.

Sometimes you wait for stuff, and you don’t even know that you’re waiting. In the last year I have seen Beautiful Lou go from being someone makin dope beats workin with great artists, to being one of the most sought after producers in this renaissance of rap. His sound has already begun to define the terms by which we measure the quality of music, and it will certainly only have an increasingly-profound affect on our ideas about music. Lou is perhaps what you might call an accidental musician. He has incredibly good taste, but he didn’t come from any kind of environment that provided him with a foundation in music. Like many of us marked by this technological age, Lou found his most notable skill set one day just fuckin with a computer, not even using a program traditionally noted for its merit as a compositional tool (he started out makin beats using Nero, you know the ancient CD burning application?).

And so, as everyone has begun to grow familiar with Lou’s sound you have all also been waiting. Without realizing it. Waiting because Lou is not just another producer making hot beats. Lou i a very talented artist, with a conception of music that goes far beyond the realms in which most have come to know him. Basically, Lou is a very smart guy who doesn’t say a lot. Until you ask. And so, it is with great pleasure that we present you with 2 in depth conversation with the man behind the beats for some of the most talked about rappers to talk about. The first half of the conversation took place over chat, and mainly focuses on how Lou works. The second half took place over the phone and focuses on what Lou has been up to lately. So, as we enter the final stages preparing for the release of the MNS record take some time and get to know the young Mexican-American dude in San Antonio who is changing the way we all hear rap.

*****

Zachg: How’s it goin?

Beautiful Lou: good. Lets talk deep moody shit

No doubt straight to it then what do you use to make music with?

Lou: A gateway computer with that little cow symbol on it. My moms
from 96 thats it.

What programs though?

Lou: Nero

How did you start usin nero? Like somebody told you bout it, or you just found it?

Lou: I bought it off a friend so I could burn CDs. I didnt even know U could edit wav files with it. I figured out that this is prolly how ppl sample. idk shit about equipment. PUT THAT IN BOLD I DONT KNOW SHIT ABOUT EQUIPMENT

Haha, will do.

Lou: dont wanna learn either. then Ill jus b like everbody else. i just think its funny meeting all these other producers and they wanna talk technical shit and I hav no idea wut they talking bout. Jus pass the blunt already

Iono, I doubt it. I think most folks learn in the same ways cause they hear in the same ways. If you learned more bout gear you’d be more of you. I def feel you though. And yeah talkin bout makin beats is not anywhere near as fun as smokin weed.

Lou: I love talkin about influences and sounds and all that. The technical aspect jus loses me not gonna front

Right, all the history and richness is in the sounds. The gear is just an afterthought. To me at least. But do you remember the stuff you sampled early on?

Lou: Tejano music ranchera music 80s synth pop. Wutever my dad had around. Alot of Selena. Synths really catch my ear I dont know why. Tejano music like Selena and Emilo had these lush heavy synth intros and interludes that came outta no where and then went straight into accordions and shit it was weird to me but i loved it.

And what were you tryin to do to the sounds? Were you hearing stuff already and then focusing on that? Or just messin around to see what catches your ear? Or something else?

Lou: Before I even tried to make a beat I was breaking down samples in my head. Jus from listening and guessing how other producers did it I always pictured wut my stuff would sound like. Once I finally got the tools it felt like it came pretty easy.

Word ok, cause I can hear that in your music. I think it really comes through that you have this bigger idea about the sounds, and how they should be to create the experience

Lou: yeah the texture I guess? is just as important to me as the melody or wutever. The more I started working with other producers the more I saw that they didnt see it. They would come up with a melody and jus use a stock dry piano sound and Im like that sounds ugly wut about this digital raindrop that sounds like its dying or sumthin. I blame video games. everything sounds so beautiful in old videogames

Yeah you’re right. And I think it was kinda the same environment that produced hip hop. You couldn’t put a CD quality recording in a videogame back then. So the stuff they came up with couldn’t just be “good music”. They were really buildin worlds with sound

Lou: Yep, building worlds . Basically I figure RZA, Madlib, Pimp C were jus reapproriating wut they grew up on. Old soul, old school hip hop,cartoons etc. so im jus using wut I grew up on Synth pop/tejano, swisha house CDs and video games.

Exactly and so much of that is about listening. It has nothin to do with gear.

How did you link up with A$AP?

Lou: I was jus a fan of ASAP YAMS blog RNT and saw he was pushing this artist that had a strong Texas influence. I figured it was a good fit and I knew Yams liked my shit so I jus hit him up.

So before Trilla who had you worked with?

Lou: Well lil B def broke me on the internet if thats wut U mean? I had to go to the net I had no choice. I had lost everything in Dallas and decided to try and see wut was active back home in San Antonio but I was soo far removed from the scene that I felt like I didnt know anybody which I didnt. So I decided to hit the net heavy and see if anybody online wanted to collaborate. I read. about hip hop! A LOT

Soo I came across cocaine blunts.com and it was rite at the time Lil Bs madness was becoming understood. Soo I decided to send him sum stuff. He sends back Cocaine and I bug out. I get addicted and now I wanted all these like minded rappers on my beats. Thats how I came across Squadda B, Western Tink, Shady Blaze and all that.

Just asking around on the internet about these ppl. Different blogs and all that. PPl think Im joking when I saw that im new to the internet but I literally NEVER knew there where all these sites and personl blogs sooo dedicated to all this new music and shit. Its addicting. especially when all U think about is hip hop.

When did you first link up with GO and tink?

Lou: Them Space Age hustle dudes hooked me up wit GO after they liked one of my old videos and asked who id like to collab wit. Tink jus shot me a random email and I liked his slang soo I checked out his music. I used to really listen to everybody’s music that got sent my way because of Tink. I thought damn if a guy this good is still beggin ppl to listen to his shit theres gotta be more legends out there. I still encorage ppl to send my there music soo GLAZEEED (my photograper/manager) can go through it. I dont really hav time anymore but discovering new talent early and having a vision for it is still I think my biggest strength

Hahah ok. and why do you choose to work with the rappers you work with? Do they complete an idea for you, or do they give you new ideas? Cause i think a lot of people who might know that you did Trilla, and Kissin Pink, they might be surprised to know you also did Okay Cupid.

Lou: Vision. Jus being able to tell wuts gonna pop and not being afraid. Thats why I dont fucc with alot of other producers cuz they got no vision. They jus make a beat. Send it out to random rappers and hope for the best. ASAP was there making music ~ Kitty Pryde had music out but nobody was fuckin with them. I knew they were gonna pop. I told Kitty exactly wut was gonna happen. Now every mutherfucker wanna throw a beat at her or get on that next ASAP album and it jus makes me sick. THERE R A THOUSAND GOOD RAPPERS OUT THERE GO MAKE GOOD MUSIC WITH THEM AND STOP RIDIN WAVES!

For sure, but you know how it goes though, most of these folks wouldnt be makin beats if it weren’t for how easy it is, and how cool it’s become. Rap is weird, because it’s about music, but it’s just as much about social relationships, bein cool and shit and a lot of times that social part overpowers the music. i think most folks fail to see the music they just focus on the social the “cool”

Lou: Naw I love being cool. Being cool is the shit. Its jus the greatest feeling in the world to discover and help new talent but I hate when U do all the work of breaking it and then sumone else swoops in and bites the whole shit. thats all

Word, i was just talkin bout how most people gonna miss all those other rappers out there, cause those unkown legends aren’t cool.

Lou: I feel u.

But yeah hahah of course we all wanna be cool in some way or another. or else we wouldn’t be doin this music. do people in your daily life know about your tunes?

Lou: Yea its def crossed over. Esp since the ASAP shit. Even more wit the Kitty Pryde shit. San Antonio isnt very big so I get recognized. Esp since my face is more out there than most producers. Im a star baby I gotta shine! but yeah it does suck tho. ppl jus want me to put them on like I kno magic or sumthin. Cant really sell weed anymore either

Prolly the better trade though. i guess those two paths though, man they’re so intertwinved. it’s funny. so you got an EP comin with Kitty, is it all your beats?

Lou: That was the original plan but too many ppl got involved. Wish her all the best tho

No doubt. it’s interesting/admirable that you would do it like that. I think you know you had opportunities that a lot of people drool over, but you’re stayin on track for what you wanna do as opposed to doin what’s gonna blow up

Lou: well I’m jus lazy and petty. I do turn down a lot of opportunites tho. After Trilla broke on the radio Atlantic and Sony and all them were like Yeah send beats for Wiz and Lupe and all that but I dont listen to them so why would I want to collab. Im very picky just like with artist i listen to. very picky about who i work wit. I figure being hard headed and petty have worked soo far so why quit

Lol that’s one way to put it, i mean i’d say you’re sticking to your guns. with this shit it’s so hard to keep your stuff. even just listening to other people’s music

Lou: Cool I just dont want too much credit when really Im just a little hard headed emo shit

Well the credit is neither here nor there. It’s more about just the thoughts you have
and the way you approach sound, and what does that all mean to people

Lou: cool

Cause it’s about protecting the art. the art is sacred

Lou: I guess. Fuck art too mayne. See there I go again

Lol nah nah. i mean art just a word. it’s whatever it is that you’re doin whatever in the universe said “hey lou, you hear that?” whatever drove you to make music, that’s the sacred thing. and the relationship you built with that drive is sacred.

Lou: I can feel that. i like that

But you know, i think a lot of folks betray that by ridin with some bigger artist.
so it’s admirable that you would stick by whatever it is that drives you instead of just jumpin on with kitty and doin somethin to ride that wave

Lou: But its my wave hah

Exactly. you stay ridin your wave. they rode your wave to some other wave
and you stayed on yours kept ridin. haha

Lou: Too many waves bottom line is im stubborn and dumb

Stubborn maybe. dumb is a joke though. so with tink then is it a different relationship than kitty or rocky?

Lou: Tink is the only other person in this game I feel comfortable callin family. Thats my ace. He believes in me like i believe in him. Just traveling with him and gettin to know him I feel like thats only gonna lead to my best music. cuz its OUR journey. Mobbin NO Sobbin

I feel that. that’s real he’s a one-of-a-kind in this. And obviously you are too, or else you woulda been sent beats to lupe or wiz. so do you think this Mobbin NO Sobbin album is gonna be a good definition of your music?

Lou: it will def represent this time in our lives

*Break*

Lou: Me and Riff Raff are doin more stuff. I really respect what he’s doin right now. He’s a new generation of legends. He just feels like a character somebody you can see as icon. That’s how I feel it is in every generation that comes up. That fool is like a cornertone that will be remembered by these other fools.

Hit the jump for the rest!

(more…)

I’ve seen so much of the zombie apocalypse that I now feel suitably numb to the whole scenario; numb enough, at least, to be able to deal with it calmly and with a level of effortless cool, should it actually come to pass. Appropriately enough, it seems that Deadlight’s ‘hero’ – Randal Wayne- has had just about enough of the undead, too. He stumbles through the game with a gruff bravado and a longing for his possibly-dead-by-now wife: barely even batting an eyelid to the swathes of zombies that surround him. Apathy, it seems, is infectious.

On the surface, Deadlight portrays itself as the spiritual successor to the likes of Prince of Persia, Flashback and Another World. It swaggers into the room with promises of old-school platforming mechanics, zombie-led puzzles and an all-important level of current generation sheen. For the first chapter, at least, the game delivers. The prospect of enemy driven puzzles and the atmosphere are breath-taking at times. Zombies lurk, claw and chase you from the background and foreground; highlighting as-yet-unknown dangers and subtly guiding you into the mentality that you should be reading your environment. When the zombies, sorry – shadows- rise, panic-fueled evasion sets in; adding a sense of urgency  and making  those precise jumps more crucial than ever.

Despite having witnessed so many apocalypses this hardware generation, the desolate, zombie infested Seattle of 1986 still has a fair amount of weight to it. The beautiful and varied use of lighting and the detailed interiors are, by far, the game’s strongest feature. Distance and a sense of not always being quite in the foreground of events add a relatable and realistic character to the proceedings and ransacking abandoned houses hasn’t lost any of its appeal since Fallout, even if there is only the odd diary page or health pack on offer.

It’s at this point that I run out of good things to say about Deadlight. Unfortunately, underneath all of its post-apocalyptic sheen (grime?) it boils down to little more than a poorly written, linear series of clichés. A lack of genuine ingenuity in terms of the puzzles and a focus on the narrative is a fatal flaw that Deadlight never quite manages to recover from. Usually, having a story driven game wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but when the dialogue is largely awful, expositional garbage, my patience reaches its breaking point and I find myself searching for solid gameplay that just isn’t there. Oh, and let’s not forget the standard tortured visions: complete with deserted playgrounds. Eerie.

Imprecise controls will let you down at the most crucial moments; a chase sequence where the run button is miraculously unresponsive, or a chain fence that becomes your worst nightmare. There’s just no fluidity or sense of rhythm to the controls: just a blind hope and a roll of the dice to see if what’s meant to happen, will happen. Ineffective, last-minute combat will cripple you numerous times: meaning that many situations have to be tackled by learning from your mistakes rather than any genuine skill or intuition. Some sections actually even appear to be devoid of true solutions, forcing you to run through crowds of enemies because you’ve been denied a wall to jump from, or your weapons have been taken from you as part of the increasingly ham-fisted plot. Oh, and let’s not forget the times that enemies can shoot you whilst off-screen. Look out for that one.

The most crucial failing of Deadlight is that it just never manages to quite live up to its potential. It’s a beautiful game, full of rich environmental detail and polish. The Unreal Engine is put to suitably good use and is pleasing to look at. That is, until you get dealt a cheap death at the hands of indistinguishable platform amongst the scenery: becoming, as it often does, a mess of muddy brown and grey textures that look like the sweepings from the Gears of War cutting room floor. When a fall usually means death and a reload, as opposed to a quick ‘try again’, you’ll notice the frustration starting to set in. Ultimately, Deadlight fails by never quite finding a sense of character with its gameplay. It knowingly references the likes of Prince of Persia and Flashback but forgets that the players who pick up on such references are going to have higher standards.

Upon finishing it I still couldn’t really tell you exactly how you play it, other than you die a lot and are forced to learn through trial and error. Sadly, that just isn’t my idea of fun. Exploration, precision, diverse application of learned skills; these are the gameplay elements that I found myself constantly craving, yet Deadlight never quite lives up to the promise of its impressive presentation. It takes pleasure in throwing out cheap shots and  lets itself down far too regularly; whenever the unresponsive run button causes you to miss a jump, an enemy shoots you off-screen or you have a puzzle solution patronizingly narrated to you.

Running in at less than two hours playtime and offering little beyond some fairly arbitrary collectibles for the more dedicated player, Deadlight just doesn’t warrant going back to. If it had just a few more genuinely satisfying segments, some fair yet challenging puzzles and environments truly worthy of exploration, then the game would be worthy of greatness. If it had even made the effort to be as good as the games it is emulating then the 1200 points price tag would be at least somewhat justified. The game’s failings aren’t crushing, it’s not even that bad of an experience, overall; it’s just that every flaw, every stumble and every cheap death is a brutal reminder of how good it could have been. Deadlight is released exclusively on XBOX Live Arcade, Wednesday 1st August.

A few weeks ago, using our Tumblr (future!) we dropped another one of our patented extra-curricular Lookbooks, showing off the best of our Summer 2012 Collection as worn by member of Мишка Skate Team member Spencer Nuzzi. The numerous shots – as captured by photographer Cameron Sanchez – featured Nuzzi doing what he does best: laying metaphorical waste to the streets of the sunnier, lefter coast, gleaming that cube to a blinding polish.

Good news everyone! We’ve now got video of the whole affair, and better yet it’s soundtracked by Snoop Dogg and R. Kelly. That makes everything better. I hope Snoop is flowing in my ear (pause?) as my first child is born. Play some Kells at my funeral (preferably the 10-minute version of “I Believe I Can Fly”). So check out the above video, also shot by Cameron Sanchez, to see Mr. Nuzzi in action.

Motion Sickness of Time Travel – Chinaberry (2012) [Hooker Vision] // Grade: B+

After receiving universal praise for her self-titled double LP earlier this year, Motion Sickness of Time Travel, or Rachel Evans, recently released Chinaberry.  Further exploring drone and ambient soundscapes, the five-song EP is named for a fruit. Though poisonous to humans, it is consumed by and intoxicating to birds. Despite the relatively concise 40 minute runtime of the release, Evans experiments beyond the hypnotizing allure of her grandiose movie-length record to showcase a range of sentiments, some of which might give the listener a feeling of distress.

The Motion Sickness of Time Travel 2xLP sounded like venturing through a Disney forest, constantly finding moments of nature and wildlife too pure to mock or dismiss. However, we are talking about drunken birds. And on the opening song, named for the title fowl intoxicant, the EP starts with the bliss of a gentle buzz. Synths swell in treble while a distant wind brushes against the underside of the track. Added is an oscillating synth that gracefully slaloms right down the middle. Everything dies down, only to return sounding more electronic and less organic. That transition hints at the more jarring nature of the remainder of the album. Yet by itself, it is still comforting. Following, “Waiting on is the Hardest Part” centers around a speedier sine curve that sounds like a police helicopter overhead. The two and a half minutes rush by like a fit of paranoia. The beginning of “Padmasana,” with sparkling synths, makes the preceding atmosphere appear as an outlier, until the joy evoked becomes questioned by the dense undertones of a cello, vocals and more synths that all intertwine around the same melody. Eventually, the initial pattern is consumed by the rising tide of a murkier ambiance, evoking agony, or perhaps just mediation, as the name can refer to the lotus position in yoga.

The final two plays are less ambiguous.  “A Thought,” the longest and most diverse track, begins with another optimistic swell only to shift, as thoughts often do, to a darker place with layers of brooding and pained synths that continued to pile on top. Closer, “Restless-Sleepless” captures the sense of insomnia so adequately it makes me uncomfortable, toying with the noise of tinnitus  and vocals like the ghost of a choir girl who’s come back to haunt her church. On Chinaberry, Evans shows her ability to arouse much more than just elegance. The complexity and range of emotions impress because so often electronic music can convey one or two oversimplified adjectives. Even compared to other genres, she does without lyrics what many songwriters will never be able to. Why someone would want to listen to music that reminds them of that depressing 15 minute inner dialogue they had or nights they couldn’t sleep with any sort of frequency probably eludes many. Even if you might want to ignore the sensations in parts of Chinaberry, Rachel Evans crafts music with so much skill and relatability that you would be a fool to do the same to her.