Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist
Voir Dire
TAN CRESSIDA
ABOVE THE CURRENT
It’s not the length of the song, but what the song can do in its runtime that makes magic. No artist embodies this mentality better than Earl Sweatshirt, who packs philosophical treatises of epic proportions into minute-long recordings. Armed with nothing more than dusty loops and exotic samples, Earl has positioned himself as the poet laureate of underground excellence.
On his new album Voir Dire, the formula is simple but flawlessly executed. Produced by The Alchemist, Earl does little to change the scenery of prior releases, but he’s simply gotten better. All those reps in the gym pay off. As he says in an interpolation of a quote from journalist Jeff Weiss on the album’s closing track—the Drakeo the Ruler-inspired “Free the Ruler”—“It’s not normal, but I swear this shit is regular.”
With features from MIKE and Vince Staples and some of Alc’s dankest, most blunted beats, it’s best to take this album in by simply kicking back and figuring out which of these Earl micro masterpieces is your favorite. Perhaps it’s the opener “100 High Street,” which features whimpering synths and a snare drum so choked it sounds like someone hitting a pillow. At a minute and a half, the song abruptly kicks the dust just as Earl is finding his flow. It’s jarring but immediately sets the stakes of the record: Earl is going to say exactly what he needs to say, and not use a word more than required to do so.
You can’t really go wrong here, but I’m particularly fond of “Vin Skully,” a play on the name of the longtime voice of the Dodgers. It’s a nod to Earl and Alc’s shared LA roots, filled with a mesmerizing guitar sample and chopped vocals. These beat flourishes are often the only melodic ideas on the album, with Earl burrowing himself deeper into the world of monotone bars that house internal rhyme schemes and off-kilter deliveries.
On “Skully,” Earl comes through with one of the strongest chronicles of depression and anxiety in recent memory, spitting, “I remember the ghost inside the crib / Hosin’ down the problem with gin and tonic / How to stay afloat in a bottomless pit / The trick is to stop fallin’ / Only option to start with a step, bet.” There’s the crushing fear of the problem, the urge to tape over the issue, and the eventual realization that the first step out of the hole is often the hardest. It’s moments like these that convince me that Earl is one of the best lyricists on the planet. He describes universal feelings in a totally unique way—addressing the problems raging within us as if they require a fire department. It’s not a solution but a trick, a piece in this constantly shifting puzzle. Earl isn’t looking for answers, just to feel a bit better.
No one harnesses the sheer magic of language like Earl does, the way words sound and feel; what things mean, both on the surface and buried under traumas and triumphs. The record’s title itself means “to speak the truth” in French, but in a legal setting is also the term for a preliminary examination of a witness by a judge or jury. Everything means something else. But it ain’t that deep, either.
