Malibu Ken — Malibu Ken ANALYSIS & REVIEW

Published 02/10/2019

This is a collaboration from two different musicians who are quite talented in their own right, and shows us up close that hard work and mastery of technique will pay off no matter what the subject material is or who you work with. On the other hand, this particular collaboration didn’t necessarily seem to bring to the two different sides to a higher level of significance, which is one ultimate goal when heads like this collide. As a whole, while the entire work was done carefully and thoughtfully, I thought that one side of the partnership was noticeably more captivating than the other, and this turned out to be a bit of a one man show with but a couple of surprising twists.

There was an obvious separation between background and foreground on this album, which isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, I think it worked rather positively overall, since the foreground layer most always took the spotlight, had presence, and showed why it was rightfully the face of the music. This was Aesop Rock’s territory, and if nothing else, this album showed that he definitely still has the charm.

The album’s greatest strength was Aesop’s rhythmic buoyancy and syncopated deliveries. Not only were his lyrics engaging and thoughtful, but the number of syllables and metric accents within his lines were well varied and provided the driving force behind the music’s direction. Some moments weren’t as eye-opening or riveting as others, but when Aesop had a verse to deliver, he sure did it with good style.

By the middle of the work, I was left a bit puzzled as to what exactly Aesop heard in the electronic musician Tobacco’s work for him to deeply desire a collaboration. That’s not to say Tobacco’s half of the work here was very subpar or lacking too much substance, however I felt an odd divide in musical intentions between the sonic atmosphere and the voice that delivered meaning. The biggest negative about the background and foreground being so separate was that the background didn’t quite match the foreground’s vivacity or clarity. It didn’t give a very sturdy or congenial backdrop, instead being off in its own world doing experiments without regard to anything around it.

It was still a rather amicable result, though, with the sound never becoming too much of a distraction or having an overly bland taste. Experimentation in sound quality from synth layers and overall dynamics provided some sparks of ingenuity. But again, it didn’t really combine with the vocal layer to ignite any massive, inspiring emotion. While unique and never dull, the chosen sounds for synths, like the mock organ tones, did seem a bit too flimsy at times given the strong vocal presence. The timbre was more than halfway pleasant, but was ultimately overshadowed and found its role unfortunately diminish.

Things were left in a bit of a limbo when Aesop was off the mic, since the sound never did a whole lot of development or textural growth. This was most evident in every chorus, where in the hip-hop style the melody counteracts the busyness of the verse with much less dense, less active phrases. That typical verse-chorus trait didn’t produce a whole lot of interest here, as Tobacco’s odd quiet synthetic vocalizations and lack of instrumental expansion left me simply waiting for the next verse. It wasn’t anything to get upset about, but I believe the song forms here could have been looser and allowed for more time for sonic development as well as basic surprise in new highlights.

The song “Acid King” was my obvious favorite song, and it dispelled many of the negatives I saw in the rest of the work. In was the one track that I felt had a convergence of intention from the two musicians. It also had the most interesting background loop from the bass with which other instrumental parts grew from, and with that, it had some good development. My favorite part of the track was the catchy synth brass countermelody that popped up when vocals cut out.

I enjoyed the album somewhat, and I’d lightly recommend it to modern hip-hop fans. Its biggest success was its most featured aspect and easiest selling point for hip-hop lovers. The rest of it didn’t captivate as much, but someone can surely find some worthiness in it.