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Rating: After several months, I am back to writing here on DeBaser! Stuck at home on a Saturday night due to the flu, between one sneeze and another, I've decided to tell you about Captain Murphy and his amazing debut album "Duality."
But who exactly is Captain Murphy? Good question. Around the figure of this mysterious musical artist in recent months, an enormous anticipation and curiosity have built up, both for the music released through numerous links for free download posted on Twitter combined with the colorful and psychedelic videos on YouTube, but especially because no one knows for sure who is behind this project. Some mention Tyler, The Creator. The 21-year-old Californian rapper who is causing a stir with his revolutionary project in the world of Rap alongside his loyal crew, the Odd Future or OFWGKTA; and him? Well, he claims not to be Captain Murphy at all, and so have Earl Sweatshirt and Left Brain (other key members of Odd Future), Flying Lotus, a well-known Californian producer, rappers MF Doom and Action Bronson, and many others. In short, the identity of Captain Murphy remains a mystery. But let's get to what really counts, the music! The individuals mentioned above leave no doubt, we are talking about Rap. Is that all? Absolutely not.
The bases are a surrogate of powerful beats immersed in a sauce that includes Glitchcore, Jazz, old OSTs of past films, pulsating samples of laughter, explosions, crack inhalations, and more, excerpts from horror films, ancient and melodic songs in incomprehensible dialects and reinterpretations of music from cartoons and video games, twisted and completely transformed into somewhat unsettling tunes. And as if that weren't enough, in all this high-pitched confusion stands the protagonist's(/s') voice, highly distorted, completely enveloped in pitch-shifter, reverb, and other, in turn modified, vocal filters; all this further makes the music of Duality, eclectic, unpredictable, and mysterious, transforming it into a continuous oxymoron that is cumbersome and at the same time fascinating. From personal experience, I particularly refer to those moments when, for example, after a noise rain of samples and rap verses, the song suddenly changes shape, the rhythm becomes relaxed, calm, and pleasant among bass and synth notes, only for the same song to be transformed again by those vocalizations, made low, thick, and deep, very deep, by that devilish pitch shifter. In terms of flow and metrics, since we are talking about Rap, it is worth mentioning that whoever sings is quite good, not reaching super technical levels but the verses and rhymes easily imprint themselves in the mind, are incisive and sharp and have the effectiveness of further increasing the power of this album. Here lies the strength of Duality, in the unpredictability of the continuous variations of its music and in the ability of its performers to be super original, whoever they are, having created a monster, an incredible album that escapes most of the clichés of the genre of reference, forgets about Swag, the NWA, and the gold chains, and rather mocks them in the dark and obscure, yet neon-lit, aura that permeates its songs.
If I were to make an open-minded comparison, after years of listening that embrace many musical genres, I would compare Duality in terms of eclecticism and originality to "666 International" by Dødheimsgard; just as eclectic is the album by the Norwegian Avantgarde Black Metal band, likewise, Captain Murphy's music is a unique product within American Hip Hop, which particularly if taken as a whole will fascinate both regular listeners of the rap genre and those who have no barriers in their listening: the music of Duality, its sick and innovative visual/musical concept will strike you, and if on the first listen it leaves you baffled, believe me, over time it will completely captivate you. The Avantgarde Hip Hop is what the loyalists of the Captain have dubbed it, and they are not mistaken! You can video-listen (what?) to Du?lity both from Captain Murphy's official site, captainmurphy.xxx, and on YouTube in the mysterious artist's official channel where the music videos of some of the multiple musical episodes of the album are available.
Greetings and best listening wishes to DeBaser readers!
"I live my life like I'm Bruce Wayne..."
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