Album Review: Loki & Scatabrainz – “Summer Knows... A Darker Shade of Grey"
Posted by in.SIGHT at 11:01
From the streets of Glasgow, Loki and Scatabrainz have teamed up to present to you "Summer Knows... A Darker Shade of Grey”. A very deep and somewhat autobiographical album, where DJ and MC are side by side, equal creators, just as it was meant to be in Hip-Hop. In the album Loki paints pictures of struggle, disgrace and upsurge, aggression and melancholy - emotions perfectly synchronized with sound by Scatabrainz.
Just as the album’s title suggests, this is not a party album, nor a feel-good mainstream production that sells a better life on the other side of the glass. Oh contraire! The perspective of the album is from inside the sphere of working class struggle and broken dreams. There are two main characters in this peace of work-Loki himself and the city of Glasgow, and the connection between them both is evident through-out. At times it sounds like a love/hate relationship but I think it’s more of a tough love story. The album represents a well tested concept - an artist telling his own story and struggles in his debut. A concept, very hard to pull off-something that Loki has managed to do, for no other reason than the honesty and intimacy of the lyrics and the tales told. However, some tracks feel out of place on the grey scenery of Loki's canvas. The sound and vibe of "Militant Disco" and "Tinitus" simply don't fit within the general idea of the album. That aside, this is a very strong debut. The album represents and ocean of emotions and feelings in which one is deluged right from the start. A grey, though realistic, 16 track depiction of a world, very real to some.
The sound of the album starts of with "A Man of Simple Tastes" -a lively, summery tune with great funk samples. After that the mood follows a slow transition to deeper and harder lyrics, laid over soft instrumentals such as "Unconditional" or dropped on even darker sounds that facilitate the listeners affiliation with the authors pain and anger for the wrongs of today and tomorrow. After the aggression of "Summer Knows" and "Dear Green Waste"(a dissolute sons ode to Glasgow),the hard vibe gives way to a melancholic sound. A great deal of praise must go to the work done on "Moonlight Flitting" - an autobiographical tale about Loki's childhood and teen years and the hardships experienced. In a sense its a story of his own life compared to the transformation of Glasgow. The track to follow, „Social Capital", only elevates the mood and tells yet another story from the grey side. In those two tracks Loki and Scatabrainz have managed to achieve harmony and resonance between the mood of the beat and the mood of the lyrics and are, without any doubt, the strongest pieces from the album.
And just when you begin to feel depressed Loki hits you with "Scatty" and "Militant Disco" which sound lively and definitely more aggressive. Now, whether you like this interruption or not is up to you. If you ask me, they should have been left off, for the sake of sound integrity. And then, somewhere along the middle, Scatabrainz takes charge with "Blue Skies"-a very ear-pleasing fusion of hip-hop, blues and dnb. By track 11("Winter Voices"),one should be familiar with the sound to come, which just gets darker trough stories of abuse, regret, fairy tails of an intoxicated mind transcending into cries of a sober aftermath. A rich palette of honest confessions for things that each one of us once chose to forget. My art teacher used to say that grey is the colour most rich in shades-a fact proven by the wrap up of "Summer knows" by another disruption of the motion that goes from an aggressive expression of discord("Tinitus") to a melancholic ode to the downs of life in "Snowflake" - the apex of Scatabrainz’s great work and a noteworthy appearance by Butterscotch. At the end, "The Sun Turns Grey" serves as a sentencing signature to a portrait of the world's ills through the eyes of a sinner.
Listening to the album more than once only enforced my positive impression of “Summer Knows”. Even if it isn’t fit for the masses, it definitely grew on me and will be in my playlist for a while. What I like most is that the album contributes to the survival of one of the most important traditions of hip-hop - that the rapper and DJ be side by side and equally important. It does this in a great way. And if praise must be given to Loki for his honest, hard hitting lyrics, the same goes to Scatabrainz for his great instrumentals that manage to catch the artist’s mood. When Loki is to have a second album, I would like to see him work with Scatabrainz again. This time around, after telling his story, maybe we can hear his solutions. Peace.
By Radoslav Penchev
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