Everybody's Favorite Weapon:Free Moral Agents

Title:  Everybodys Favorite Weapon

Label: GSL

Genre: Experimental Lounge

Rating: 4.5 of 7

I first came across Isaiah “Ikey” Owens’ (Mars Volta, Sublime) side project about 6 months ago when he released a split with another GSL artist, Subtitle. On the 12’’ was experimental hip-hop that was decent, but not quite there just yet. With much anticipation I grabbed Everybodys Favorite Weapon to see if he reached his potential. To my surprise, there is very little hip-hop at all from the keyboard player, instead this is experimentations with lounge and avant-jazz music. It is mostly down-tempo with each track falling apart then reassembling itself by the end of the song. While there is cohesiveness as a whole, it’s hard to tell with in each track. I dig the wide assortment of instrumentation (flutes, trumpets, bells, etc) and influences (eastern music, flamenco-jazz, dub, hip-hop). All together though, this is a bit of a disappointment. There is definite potential, but, again, it lacks cohesiveness and even one completely solid track. I’ll be, once again, looking forward to the next attempt.

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