Memphis MC and producer Cities Aviv knows how to make an impression. Whether it be through the dark, hardcore rhymes and dazzling, DIY dance production of Come to Life, or the tight and riveting, DJ Screw-shaped "Raised For A Better View," you can tell one of his numbers simply by the way it impacts your psyche. With in this impressionistic journey of sound, one which Cities Aviv has been hitchhiking and hijacking his way through since the inception of his current project, The Crashing Sound of How It Goes is possibly the purest in mood, if most varied in approach.
Generally, the album embraces smooth, Sunday-suited jazz samples and plangent soul to envoke the sensation of a laconic tension- like the gentle rise and fall of a tranquil pool of water, one characterized by a fluctuation barely perceptible on the surface. And like still water, it runs deep and contains ravaging current- the strengths of which may not be perceptible until they've pulled you under. The stony beats and bristling electronics on the first half of "Iron Theatrics" is a good example of just such a turbulent set of rhythms, while "Episodes," conversely, rockets to the stars on a spacey, disco synth riff, only to contract and fold around a straightforward, R'nB beat and relaxed Serengeti-esque flow- a transition that is more surprising than you'd expect, and emblematic of the unpredictable nature of the album on the whole.
Despite its evolutionary approach, there is a leaning towards fatalistic architecture on some of these songs, conveying a sense that things will never change- a sentiment explored through the looping funk bass on "Stranded," which keeps threatening to resolve only to stumble over its shoelaces and stutter through another phrase in tandem with a limbo-leashed chorus sample, both contrasted and mocked in turn by Cities's even tempod, chewy flow. Later, we witness gambits of egress, exiting cycle in affirmations of practice on "Life's Only Valid Expression," where a camp revival and disco soul sample battle for space and oxygen with Cities's vocals- verses that sound like they were recorded at the bottom of a subterranean waterfall- representing a kind of baptism in a combined bonfire and underground font.
A lot of the sources for the samples used on this album are ambiguous to me (although, I'm positive someone else could track them down if they wanted to). I can't tell you where the soul sample from "Imma Stay Here" is from, but it sounds old and established, and when Cities comes in over it, he sounds like he is putting down roots in stone, laying down a foundation that will last as long as the rock of ages. A lot of these samples are beautiful on their own, but they really come to life when Cities interacts with them through his flow- reviving their potential and allowing them to live again through his music.
There is a sense of scholarly investigation in the way that many of these samples are being employed. Like Cities is testing the limits of each of their power and intelligibility. Observing how their energies disperse as they degrade in the air. Testing their strengths and submitting to their frailties while collaborating with their assumed logic in a way that allows new doctrines of possibility to be erected through discarded and overlooked sound- the way a folk artist may assemble an original sculpture with found artifacts. Only in this case, it is not a sculpture Cities has made; it is a golem. One that he rides astride its shoulders, directing it to dig for fire in seemingly desolate places with only passion and a certainty of purpose guiding the joint venture of their excavations.
The Crashing Sound of How It Goes, is an audacious meddle of sounds and emotions- confrontational in both conception and design. There is zeal for exploration and an appreciation for progressive instrumentation in his work that still feels rare in hip hop, even in an era when psychedelic expressionism is making inroads into the underground- not just in hip hop, but in soul and R'nB as well. Somehow his album manages to bridge the divide between all three genres in a cacophony that is as insurgent as it is innovative.
The Crashing Sound of How it Goes is out via D.O.T. Audio Arts
