The rapper Cities Aviv from Memphis consistently views hip-hop as an open collage. His often unwieldy, fragmented productions are paired with a deliberately brittle off-beat flow. On Even Colder Spring (Black Truffle), too, seemingly polished productions cut short after just a few seconds, before voices and field recordings intrude without warning.
‘Martine Drift’ plays with synthesiser motifs and is reminiscent of the lighter side of Krautrock, though it is immediately kept at arm’s length by fuzz effects and the grainy production. At the other end of the album is the almost seven-minute track ‘Final Heaven’, which dissolves a cloud of loops into ecstatic, rippling distortions. The same applies to his voice throughout all the tracks. Rap, mumbling and raw vocals do not necessarily follow the rhythm and clash with the partly harmonic sections.
Cities Aviv defies any unambiguous interpretation on Even Colder Spring, yet remains astonishingly personal. Lyrics about alienation and life caught between the internet and reality ultimately fit perfectly with this collection of unstable states.
Even Colder Spring
