ELUCID – REVELATOR

ELUCID’s last record found the New York rapper within a relatively warm, intimate context. I Told Bessie’s opener set the tone with the gentle philosophizing of Joy James and a bed of tuneful guitar samples. Though there were the expected moments of unnerving dissonance, off-kilter drum programming, and his insistent, explosive vocal style, the album felt like an unusually welcoming addition to his discography, in part informed by its dedication to his grandmother, Bessie Hall.
Two years later, whatever warmth was channeled into I Told Bessie has dissipated into rage on REVELATOR, his first to be released via Fat Possum. It would be wrong to say that it’s vanished completely—indeed, all of ELUCID’s music, even at its most challenging, seems to be underpinned by a philosophy of empathy and love—but it is certainly buried, obscured by REVELATOR’s eruption of pummelling, discordant noise.
“THE WORLD IS DOG” sets the agenda, ELUCID’s insistent, aggressive delivery locked into crushing live drums (provided by Jon Nellen). The world he describes here is bleak and unrelentingly claustrophobic (“Trust none, fear all,” he warns). He paints a psychology of despair and nihilism, a grim descent into uncontrolled violence. Though the opener is unusually direct and immediate, his writing often operates free from the requirements of narrative or obviously coherent meaning, instead forming a scattershot collage of imagery, only occasionally cohering into a easily accessible idea. He doesn’t have time to detail every esoteric reference. On “XOLO”, even the track’s tempo isn’t able to contain the speed and urgency of his thought processes—“come on, catch up” he bellows as the tempo accelerates. At times, the writing, particularly when delivered through his commanding baritone, even takes on an incantatory dimension. The words are not to be studied as such, or to be scoured for meaning, but to be heard as an abstract doorway into ELUCID’s world (“fang bite, dog breath, short leash, pit fight” are among the first words of the record, phrases that could just as well have echoed out from a covenstead). His voice, so often adorned with both effects and affect, is that of a possessed shaman, using the visceral resonance of his vocal tone to forcibly creep under your skin.
Even when you’ve grasped a line or two and feel you’re developing an understanding, ELUCID will surprise you, interspersing the bleakness with moments of true intimacy—even optimism. That fleeting respite from anguish seems to emerge most frequently from the deep familial tenderness that surrounds the rapper. On the magnificent “BAD POLLEN” (produced by Iranian-Canadian duo, Saint Abdullah), ELUCID interrupts scenes of endless violence with touching images of both paternal love (“I squeeze my children’s hand and walk hard against the wind”) and carnal relief (“I wake up and thrust inside my missus, two fistfuls of hair my face buried”).
The world REVELATOR emerges from becomes most clear in the album’s final moments. “ZIGZAGZIG” makes the source of much of the noise, chaos, and anger that precedes it all the more concrete. Though Israel’s ongoing assault of Gaza is alluded to at multiple points, it’s only during the closer that ELUCID makes it explicit, focusing his writing into haunting images. “Metal poke out rubble, body twist angles akimbo, covered heads huddled.”
ELUCID’s music has always worked at the intersection of the personal and the macropolitical. How does one navigate a world of such horror and oppression while going about their life with joy, continuing to love and raise children, refusing despair? As the world changes, ELUCID’s music reflects his particular navigation of those questions. If I Told Bessie was an album of revolutionary love and warm familial reflection, REVELATOR is one of political rage and ceaseless brutality. As he repeats on the opener: “Can’t clock the kill, all a mystery, forced past will, eating everyone eventually/The world is dog.”
Label: Fat Possum
Year: 2024
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Noah Sparkes is a UK-based culture writer specialising in film, TV, and music. With a particular interest in the intersection of culture, politics, and history, Noah has written in a variety of outlets.