Experimental Hip-Hop: Third Side Of Tape (2015) / Lil Ugly Mane
Accept the fact that with Third Side Of Tape you aren’t given a tracklisting nor can you skip to the next song as the tracks are bunched together. It is quite literally as if you were listening to a three-sided cassette tape. This album is a genre hopping collection of obtuse and warped musical motifs, a mixbag of: grimy hip-hop instrumentals, drone, ambient, house, techno, plunderphonics of all sorts, shoegaze, lo-fi rock, country, punk rock, and black metal. However Lil Ugly Mane’s mastery of production techniques and understanding/appreciation for each genre ensure that each excerpt is quality and handled with a certain trademark finesse. There are hidden gems buried in these compilation behemoths. You could infer that Lil Ugly Mane is trying to weed out casual listeners from his audience because a record having this variety and this length doesn’t exactly make for a concise first impression.
It makes no sense but it simultaneously makes perfect sense. If insanity could be appreciated as art by the sane, this is it in album form.
FAV TRACK: SIDE TWO-B
By:Lucas Philipp