Photo by Nick Surette
Remember Rugrats Go Wild? The Nickelodeon movie where everyone’s favorite talking babies teamed up with The Wild Thornberries in a now-beloved animated adventure that combined the innocent playfulness of one show with the magical thrill-seeking of the other?
That’s the sort of what it feels like listening to Social Absence, the new three track collaborative EP from Cliff Notez and Dephrase (one half of Optic Bloom and a solo artist in his own right). It’s a rapper-producer team-up that pushes both artists to perform at their highest level. Sure, there are elements at play that resemble their individual résumés: Cliff’s clever and enigmatic scene-setting and introspective questioning mixed with Dephrase’s penchant for loose-fitting, dynamic beats that pull from a bevy of electronic subgenres.
Despite this being a collab between Cliff and Dephrase, Latrell James kicks the EP with his verse on “Voodoo Doll,” a single that came out at the beginning of August. James melodicizes over what begins as a simple keyboard-tinged boom-bap beat. His lyrics hit home for those of us stuck in week-after-week of quarantine: “Lately I ain’t moving how I want to move, lately I ain’t doing what I wanna do.” Then, the kick drum hits double time, immediately boosting the track’s sense of urgency as James bemoans the wastefulness of repetitive living. Once Cliff Notez starts getting his words in – exploring the idea that the work you put in to improve your life takes a lot of worthwhile (albeit frustrating) time and patience – we’re in the midst of a swell of brass instruments, bass, and airy synth lines.
Please Wear Your Masks! (Photo by Nick Surette)
“Spiral” follows this pattern of weaving music and lyrics to elicit a simulated effect: this time, it’s the little things in our day-today that can act as stressors. For Cliff, it’s near-constant distraction of our phones, these devices that promise to make our lives more convenient, but more often than not only serve to cause anxiety: “I’m feeling kinda rushed… is this a number that I can trust?” He even seems to respond to the idea presented on “Voodoo Doll” of repetition being a sort of curse: “I’m not swimming in a spiral, I’m just trying to stay afloat.” It feels like that sometimes, and “Spiral” reminds us that there’s nothing wrong with allowing yourself time and space to be present.
If you picked up on the theme of repetition present, then it might come as no surprise that the EP’s closer is titled “Repeat.” Overall, it’s a project that emphasizes quality over quantity, examining the slow-burning feel of trying to be a little happier with yourself despite living at a time when it can be hard not to feel trapped and confined to a limited range of space and movement. Almost like a whisper from a ghost, the final words of the EP remind us that “we are still here,” floating away into some far-off atmospheric space.
Stream Social Absence below via Spotify.