New Release: Depart From Me by Cage

Track Listing:

Nothing Left To Say

Beat Kids

Dr. Strong

I Found My Head In Connecticut

I Lost It In Haverton

Teenage Hands

Eating It’s Way Out Of Me

Kick Rocks

Captian Bumout

Strain

Fat Kids Need An Anthem

Look At What You Did

Depart From Me

I Never Knew You

“When you grow tired of lying on the ground, people walking on you: If you get to your feet and struggle to stand and people you know withdraw their hands and you don’t know why. I know why.” - “Nothing Left To Say”

Most rappers need songwriters to create something for them to spit out, but all Cage needs to do is write about his life and it is far more interesting. New York City rapper Cage was born Chris Palko in Würzburg, Germany where his father, Bill Murray, was a member of the Military Police Command stationed in Western Germany. The family was later relocated to New York because of his father’s heroin addiction, where he was abused by his father and after the age of eight, his stepfathers. Chris was put into a mental facility at age sixteen, originally for two weeks to escape jail time, for almost eighteen months.

Depart From Me is a series of well-written confessions from his time on Lithium and pre-FDA approved Prozac to cigarettes coated in embalming fluid. The album is Cage’s second full length since getting off hardcore drugs and shows a more progressive style of rap.

F. Sean Martin produced most of the album which caused Depart From Me to fulfill a sound all of its own; there are more experimental rock beats than on any of his previous work which caused some fans to feel skeptical about the direction Cage’s music is going. His first album, Movies For The Blind, is a raw cut of his lyrical talent and clearly shows his rapping style. Due to his drug use, the production of his first full length suffered but hardly detracted from its success.

Following his first album, in 2005 Cage released Hell’s Winter, which introduced the freshly cleaned-up rapper and his new perspective on music. While this album revolutionized the style of Cage’s lyrics, it wasn’t until Depart From Me that the musical aspect of the songs was innovated.

Intricately woven together, the album holds a strong and steady trio of guitar, synth and drums throughout almost every song which allows easy listening, but causes some songs to run into each other. The starting track, “Nothing Left To Say”, leads in with a strong crescendo and even stronger verses. “I Never Knew You”, his first single off the album, is one of his most musically diverse songs but also one of his strongest; the dance-beat “Captain Bumout” is also a new sound for Cage that shows his strength in songcrafting. Straying from autobiographical stories, “Look At What You Did” is probably the only song about vampires that has legitimate credibility and great production. Cage experiments to provide a break in his otherwise heavier material, “Kick Rocks” successfully gives two middle fingers to anyone in his way while “Fat Kids Need An Anthem” seems to only be present for comic relief.

It appears as if Cage is reinventing rap again, as his debut album set the largely unnoticed precedent for acts like Eminem, Atmosphere, Aesop Rock and other rappers in the late ’90’s. There are perks to being an underground rap star, though; Cage frequently collaborates with Daryl Palumbo, Aesop Rock, El-P, and collaborated with the late Camu Tao. He also fronts the Weathermen with Aesop Rock, Tame One, Yak Ballz, El-P, and Breeze Brewin.

The success of Depart From Me is largely due to Cage’s animated and unconventional rapping style that has only matured with the years. Collaborations with his producers result in layered material that is not only catchy and clever, but actually has significant meaning which is increasingly rare for music in general. Ambitious and out to get what he can, Cage’s next album will most likely explore more musically varied tracks with more attention to production. For now, Depart From Me still trumps all rap artists that are more concerned with being single, being on a boat, getting laid or making money.

Envy On The Coast's Lowcountry

Track Listing:

Death March On Two, Ready

The Devil's Tongue

Headfirst In The River

Puritan Dirt Song

Laugh Ourselves To Death

The Great American T-Shirt Racket

Southern Comfort

*

Like I Do

Numb

Made Of Stone

Clean Of You

Hidden Track

Although Long Island is far from the South, Envy On The Coast’s sophmore full-length captures the essence of dirty vibes throughout their matured sound. After a line-up change, the renewed chemistry of the four original members brought together an album that showcases the strength of each musician as well as their developed, collective sound. The complexity of each guitar weave together a textured sound with a strong bass groove in which Ryan Hunter’s voice obviously thrives.

The album is laden with multiple singles,

(see: “Southern Comfort,” “The Great American T-Shirt Racket,” “Headfirst In The River,” “Clean Of You,” and my personal favorite “Laugh Ourselves To Death.”)

that explore slower, grinding songs as well as their signature rapid tempo changes. The raw passion of their live shows is finally captured in Lowcountry and shows the progression of the band which is what makes this album their best yet.

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange

Old Ludwig Van’s Ninth Symphony plays loudly on the record player as a young chelloveck, Alex, wraps a snake around his arm. The treament Our Humble Narrator agrees to get out of prison early, after tolchocking a woman to death, left him with a great pain in his gulliver, nausea and other mental discomforts whenever he exhibits agressive behavoir.

This young veck is the anti-hero of Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel and while the unique costumes and powerful acting performance are a pivotal part of the film, the culture created by the story lives a life of its own.

And Beethoven plays in the background.

Charles Bukowski's Ham On Rye

Crack open a beer and be prepared to drink towards alcoholism, sexual perversion, lonliness and the Great Depression.

Ham On Rye is a fictional memoir that follows Bukowski’s alter-ego, Henry Chinaski, as he recounts the events and people that shaped his life. The minimalist prose that Bukowski is known for is sewn together, chronicling his childhood days of abuse and exile.

Henry Chinaski’s unapologetic narrative is one of the most powerful devices Bukowski uses in many of his novels. The years he spent billigerently drunk, wasting money at the racetrack and with women, are not blamed on hardships in his past which spares Bukowski from creating a cliche story about a troubled man leading an empty life.

Instead, Chinaski marvels at the “shitting and pissing glory of humanity” while nursing a warm beer, half naked in his bed.

Cheers.