Yungmorpheus’ music is a examine in seeing the statue lurking throughout the slab of marble. For practically a decade, the Miami-raised, Los Angeles-based rapper has been chipping away at a selected sound, smoothing out every beveled edge with each subsequent launch. On its face, his formulation is fairly easy: well-appointed loops, drums that click on greater than they crack, sharp-witted couplets delivered in a gift however aloof monotone. It’s a heavy-lidded vibe, mildly psychedelic like a morning with out caffeine, shifting slowly however intentionally.
Morph’s cultivation of the final word chill—a trait that feels endemic to his character, irrespective of the circumstances of his life—appears nearly to exist in a state of inertia. He smokes from a bottomless bag of weed, sips from a sommelier’s fantasy draft checklist, and chooses entrees you’ll be able to’t pronounce from menus you’ll be able to’t afford. His writing and supply go hand in hand; as an alternative of sitting on the entrance of the beat, Morph’s voice tucks into its nooks till he turns into one in all its options, one other aspect in a lush, swirling soundscape. You possibly can take heed to his unhurried cadence and resonant tenor and be swept away by his body-high sonics, however finally, you’ll catch a line that makes your eyes widen and ears perk. An fringe of anger and paranoia lies beneath his laid-back demeanor: Between the fly life-style moments and flicks of his lighter, Morph additionally synthesizes complete libraries of Black radical custom and memorizes the place all of the exits are. Typically, the hazy cloud that hovers over his work begins to really feel like a weighted blanket.
On A Spyglass to One’s Face, his latest album and second collaboration with Charlotte producer Soiled Artwork Membership, Yungmorpheus is feeling extra destabilized than typical. He usually switches between factors of view in his raps, giving the sense that it may be simpler to create a personality to research one’s ideas than look internally. Perhaps he’s dissociating, perhaps it’s unconscious—both means, Morph makes a behavior of stepping exterior of himself. He’s by no means had a lot of a choice for complicating his music constructions, preferring to unspool his ideas by one lengthy verse and instantly shifting on to the subsequent. That method hasn’t modified a lot right here, however he lets the beats experience slightly greater than typical, permitting his ideas only a smidge extra respiration room. Soiled Artwork Membership’s manufacturing, as lush and ethereal as something Morph’s rapped on, feels sharper than his typical saturated palette. The flurries of tape static have been scrubbed off, and there’s a readability to the samples, as if Morph is standing in the midst of the spherical, directing a stay band. It’s one of the best distillation of the Yungmorpheus concept, maintaining his laconic sound intact however shining mild on the nervousness that simmers beneath. All of it makes Morph appear livelier, extra outwardly weak and approachable.
