Generally speaking, everything FearDorian has a hand in is excellent, which is crazy because he was born in 2006 (!) which should mean that he’s cooked in an unprecedented, iPad-melted-death-of-humanity way. But in fact he’s sort of a locus of extremely joyous and generative collabs and side projects, mostly with a lot of people around the same age; his album with Polo Perks and AyooLii last year was an instant classic, among my favorites of 2024, and a very handy guide to the main vein of contemporary American rap in that it ceremoniously linked the main three current schools of innovation (Milwaukee, Atlanta, NYC). This year, FearDorian returns, this time collabing with quinn on Before You Press Play. FearDorian has an enormously wide range of references — that’s maybe his signature — and this project skews the most towards anesthetized emo à la Drain Gang of anything I’ve heard from him thus far. Because I (a patriot) am dutifully invested in the Project of American Music, it really delights me when American artists reclaim/re-appropriate an overseas appropriation of something initially American — I’m thinking of Jack DeJohnette (RIP) conquering ECM Jazz after allowing the anemic German featherweights to have their brief dalliance with it, or Television salvaging from England its two degenerate homunculi of rock & roll (prog rock and whiny dumb-guy punk) and fashioning it into post-punk. Or, in this case, two teenagers from Atlanta retrieving cloud rap from the dismal shores of Sweden and returning it to its rightful home in the American south.
But while certainly these two listened to a lot of Bladee and ecco2k in middle school (which I guess was like last year?) this album is by no means mimicry! It’s an intensely original collage of deep, lovingly-made beats, weird off-the-cuff harmonies, and unquantized, wayward rapping. Very glorious stuff. The production here is sublime; immersive and audacious, original and strange. Every listen illuminates a new little moment of iridescence. Maybe I’m making it sound too cerebral — which it sort of is — but it’s also unfailingly immediate and emotive. “so i don’t forget” is amazing climbing-the-stairs-to-house-party music. The whole thing is just fucking good.
Asher White’s latest record, 8 Tips For Full Catastrophe Living, is out now on Joyful Noise.
