Old Earth (studio album)
by Jadasea & MIKE

From ForegroundNoise 12/22/2020 22:31 | #263087

Under the no-frills pen-name MIKE, Bonema has spent the last half decade curating a signature blend of lo-fi hip hop and hypnagogic pop (hipnagogia? hypnagogic hop?), turning heads all over the East Coast in the process. Don’t let this carefree attitude distract you; Bonema’s instrumentals are invariably meticulous, often honing in on some monetary waver in a 60s soul vocal line to the point you can’t unhear its underlying melancholy. Aside from collaborations with New York experimental sound collective Standing on the Corner, Bonema’s production style caught the ear of Earl Sweatshirt, earning him a name drop on “The Mint” and a support slot on Earl’s 2019 FIRE IT UP tour.

“Rottweilers”’s music video pits the New Jersey rapper on the opposite side of the Atlantic. The entire first minute is a single excruciating panning shot that refuses to glance up from the dirt and grit of London’s pavements. We’re so accustomed to the city’s drab streets, it’s only when the camera eventually pulls up that we realise there’s a greyscale colour gradient over the footage.

Much like everything else in his eyeline, Bonema’s view of the UK has never been romantic, and so the blunt pragmatism in his lyrics never finds themselves at odds with those of London native Jadasea. The two have appeared on a handful of tracks together (along with Earl, Jadasea was the only guest appearance on Bonema’s 2020 LP Weight of the World), but Old Earth sees the duo trade back-to-back bars for nearly eleven and a half minutes straight. Weight of the World might have failed to live up to Bonema’s previous two mixtapes, and his other EP this year as dj blackpower no doubt impressed, the production on Old Earth is a career high. Each of the project’s six untitled tracks manage to evoke a nostalgia that’s at once haunted and starry-eyed, but it’s the pained strings from closer “track F” that live on in my waking dreams.