So The Flies Don‰’t Come by Milo

Courtesy of  Bandcamp

If I had my way, Milo‰’s So The Flies Don‰’t Come would be on every ‰Best Albums of 2015‰’ list in existence. Unfortunately, I don‰’t have that kind of power (yet) and until that does happen, Milo‰’s works will be severely underrated. The album did make top 10 in many lesser-known publishers‰’ lists like The Observer and Brooklyn Magazine‰’s, but it failed to reach the top 50 in Pitchfork‰’s lauded end-of-year list. Part of the issue is the lack of mainstream desire for art-rap, or for any other hip-hop subgenres doomed with the label “experimental.‰” Chicago drill and Southern trap has experienced a surge in popularity and rightly so, as the music coming out of these scenes are fun, hard-hitting, and will make anyone want to turn up – but the style Milo and the art-rap movement are going for doesn‰’t quite fit into these descriptors.

Art-Rap?

Rory Ferreira (aka Milo, also Clams Casino), a Wisconsin-born rapper, continues to evolve as he broadens the hip-hop subgenre ‰art-rap.‰’ Inspired by the likes of Jean-Michal Basquiat, K-Rob and The Rammellzee, art-rap was founded as a protest against the direction of hip-hop in the early 2000s. Many in the hip-hop community grew tired of the rampant commercialization of the genre and were nostalgic for the Golden Age, which most of the artists grew up with. Many saw the turn of the century for what it was: a sound that was traveling farther and farther away from its root as a true art form – a fallout from the prosperous time of A Tribe Called Quest and Gangstarr. Art-rap exists today because of a community of dedicated musicians who want to uphold hip-hop as high-art and Milo is a staple of the burgeoning movement.

The Album

In his most recent attempt, So The Flies Don‰’t Come, Rory opts for a production style that has the subtlety and smoothness of a 90s jazz-rap classic, but the defining harsh rawness of modern glitch electronica. To complement the orchestrated glitches of the otherwise smooth beats, Rory‰’s signature unorthodox freeform art-rap flow is poured on top, but with lyrical themes that illustrate self-critical musings and the revelation of possessing a flawed personality against a backdrop of institutionalized racism and microaggressions he encounters at shows. Additionally, Rory makes sure that his signature style of absurdist, yet meaningful, rhyming is not lost in his second official album. Though these themes aren‰’t entirely novel for him, Rory truly makes So The Flies Don‰’t Come unique by giving each song its own story. From “Souvenir (ft. Hemlock Ernst)‰” to “Song About a Raygunn (An Ode to Driver),‰” each song has enough distinguishable character to stand alone as singles. Yet despite their individuality, each song on the album flows into each other ‰ÛÒ giving it the feel of a complete work of art.

Rory has been a part of the art-rap community to accomplish exactly what So The Flies Don‰’t Come set out to do. He makes music that is art – worthy of being hung in the MoMA and this album is no exception.

– Jack Marsden

Multi Love by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Courtesy of Pitchfork

 In my humble opinion, Multi Love by Unknown Mortal Orchestra is one of the most underrated albums of 2015. I first came across this band when I was doing an interview at the Landmark Festival and I asked the band I was interviewing what their favorite album of the year was.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra hails from New Zealand, but there is no hint of accent in their songs. Their first self-titled album was released in 2011 to high acclaim and was nominated for an award at the New Zealand Music Awards.

Multi Love was released in May of 2015. Not only did the album win Best Alternative Album at the New Zealand Music Awards, but its title track was also designated a “Best New Track‰” by Pitchfork.

This album is colorful all the way from its artwork to its instrumentation. The tracks themselves are a game of blink and you‰’ll miss it. The complex layered synth that appears and disappears throughout the album gives the otherwise psychedelic album a pop-like feel.

As specific as this album seems to be genre-wise on the surface, it is anything but. This album colors outside the lines in a way that is unseen in their previous albums. Each song delivers a different feel than the last, hopping from a drum-heavy rock inspired track to a brass based, synth-backed track. One may assume that this transition would be clunky and awkward, but the artistry displayed on this album assures you it could be anything but.

tl;dr- Unknown Mortal Orchestra hits alt-pop out of the park with the artistry on this album and must break out of the New Zealand scene and into the rest of the world.

RIYL: Tame Impala, Foxygen and Temples

Recommended Tracks: 1, 4, 5 and 8

-Dani Rosen