Album Review: Die Ageless by Kevlaar 7

"I must've been an emcee in my past life/

presently I'm unquestionably poetic/ I'm mad nice"

- Cormega

"the great ever living dead man"
- Coleridge describing Shakespeare

For a brief decade or so, as you may remember, CD singles were a thing. You'd go to the store and buy a compact disc that contained at most 2 or 3 songs, sometimes instrumental and acapella versions included. A good enough single with substance to it might make that lone compact disc worth innumerable hours of spinning. The hip hop genre's ultimate height, the 1990s, coincided with the plateau of compact discs. As more and more music was enabled to be stored and condensed into less and less space, the overall quality of the artform rapidly diminished to the point of catering toward 99-cent ringtone simplicity. In similar fashion, the medium of printed books began as a means of storing and increasing our knowledge only to eventually have bookstores fill up with vacuous bestsellers. 

In his first full-length offering, Die Ageless, Detroit emcee/producer Kevlaar 7 has assembled a vastly rich musical novel of 19 chapters (18 songs plus thoughtful intro). One could isolate any one or two tracks, carry them around like an old single compact disc and continually uncover an astoundingly intricate artistic nuance throughout. It's a collection of true hip hop singles, every track feels deeply considered, you really could split this album up into 3 short EPs that would all have replay value. 

La muerte no es el fin

"Phall if you but will, rise you must"

- Finnegans Wake, pg. 4

This incredible mural was on a wall in downtown Austin until, for some reason, it was recently painted over.

Shame. At least I got to get this great picture of it, though.

Metempsychosis

Still finishing up a lengthy post on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I've got something else for the mean time.

This is an extremely interesting (though very low budget) documentary. Enjoy.