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Critic Reviews
100
Jhelli Beam proves that conscious rap hasn’t necessarily failed, as Busdriver claims; it just looks like it’s being replaced by a fiercer, more highly evolved entity. And it’s about damn time.
8y
80
Busdriver will likely remain an obscure genius until he lets his guard down a bit and finds some more reasonable common ground.
11y
70
When he’s speeding through neighbourhoods of clownish rhyme schemes, alliterative gibberish and sped-up Mozart sonatas, you wish he’d take his foot off the pedal slightly – though that’s not to say skid off into a dead-end street of girls, guns and gangsterisms.
11y
70
A sonic soup that mixes everything from classical, jazz, and indie rock atop searing electronic beats.
9y
62
Technically impressive as always, Busdriver returns with another record that sounds like DOOM's cultural vocabulary funneled through Doseone's vocal dexterity.
11y
60
If he feels so strongly about the sentiment in his spoken intro, then why doesn't he record an album that actually raises consciousness instead of overwhelming listeners with the contents of his id?
11y
60
Unconcerned with innovation, Busdriver is running in circles and flailing. But maybe flailing is what he does best.
11y
Let's be honest. Conscious rap failed us. We should rob all conscious rhymers. Pass the Aunt Jemima.
The tight-knit electronica of this project and some others in this vein is not as appealing to me as the spacier, more emotional executions seen in projects like More Heart Than Brains and Dont Give Up. Of the experimental glitch-adjacent West Coast scene, those more maximal approaches make me most.
Some of the strangest hip-hop music I've heard, comparable to something like a Coin Locker Kid. Crazy weird flows and verse structure with idiosyncratic beats, some songs just for fun, some with deep meanings hidden behind several layers of confusing and creative lyricism. This is an album that can only be experienced, not explained lol.
Best songs: Split Seconds (Between Nannies and Swamis), Me-Time (With the Pulmonary Palimpsest), Handfuls of Sky, Least Favorite Rapper, Quebec and Back, Do ... read more
The best song on here is Me - Time (With The Pulmonary Palimpsest), aka Imaginary Places 2. Notice how it is by far the most played song with 4x more plays than the second most played, and over 1,000x more than just about everything else. What Driver needs to do is release an EP or short album just of him rapping over classical music samples.
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Track List
| 1 | Split Seconds (Between Nannies and Swamis) 4:16 | 89 |
| 2 | Me-Time (With the Pulmonary Palimpsest) 2:36 | 85 |
| 3 | Handfuls of Sky 5:08 | 87 |
| 4 | Scoliosis Jones 2:36 | 77 |
| 5 | Least Favorite Rapper 3:23 feat. Nocando | 79 |
| 6 | Quebec and Back 4:07 | 46 |
| 7 | Do the Wop 3:02 | 55 |
| 8 | World Agape 2:16 | 59 |
| 9 | Manchuria 3:48 feat. Myka 9 | 57 |
| 10 | Unsafe Sextet/Gilded Hearts of Booklovers 5:11 | 74 |
| 11 | Happy Insider 3:29 feat. Nick Diamonds | 70 |
| 12 | I've Always Known 2:37 | 72 |
| 13 | Fishy Face 5:09 feat. John Dieterich | 72 |
| 14 | Sorry. Fuckers 3:03 | 68 |
Total Length: 50 minutes
