THIS month’s choice for the album you may have missed is as unique as they come.
Few albums over the last few years have painted quite as bleak a picture as Loki’s post-referendum apocalyptic masterpiece Government Issue Music Protest (GIMP), released on November 5 last year.
The veteran Glasgow rapper, working alongside singer-songwriter Becci Wallace, offers up what could go down as his defining body of work as he takes you on a journey through an Orwellian, dystopian future.
Throughout the album there are journalistic extracts from news bulletins apparently from Scotland in the year 2034, reporting on such things as the NHS rising to the top of the FTSE 100 and the demolition of the Scottish Parliament as part of the London Olympic Games celebrations.
Written in an almost documentary style and set in the UK’s first “super city”, New Glasgow, Loki takes you first-hand into his imagined world, absorbing you in the sights and sounds of the time.
It’s easy to get caught up in the imagery and ideas presented throughout the album to the extent that you forget to appreciate just how well delivered and put together the whole piece is.
Opening with the brazen The End, the themes of the album slowly unfold, as you are taken into Loki’s dystopian world, with its vision of super Glasgow towers, killer wasps and the struggle against government oppression.
The first standout moment of the LP comes six songs in, as the irrepressible Porno jumps out of the speakers. The heavy beat hits instantly, setting the scene before Becci Wallace comes in with some of the gentlest tones on the album, working perfectly with Loki’s harsh lyrical style.
Featuring some of his best lyrics, the four-minute track is a perfect example of everything that makes the album work.
Loki merges witty wordplay about last year’s independence vote with sharp social commentary, all the while keeping you rooted firmly in his newly created world.
Following on from Porno is The Unimportance of Being Idle, documenting an argument between two people of right- and left-leaning political beliefs, taking on social injustice and the class system as it goes.
As it is very much a concept album it can be difficult to pick out individual songs as they all work together to form a whole, but each track seems to have enough to stand on its own.
As the record prepares to come to a close, after 16 sixteen tracks, you are hit with one of the most aggressive numbers on GIMP – The State of the Union.
“You’re apathetic cause you’re penniless/You’re penniless because you’re apathetic and there’s evidence” the Glasgow rapper spits, be fore adding: “Fear is a distortion of choice/In my State of the Union address/I’m declaring that we put an end to this.”
Although the album may not be the most accessible, it is worth taking a risk on. As you reach the last track on GIMP, the vision of New Glasgow and its missing children, riots and disease will be seared in your mind’s eye.
Crude, disturbing, thought-provoking and, at times, surprisingly gentle, GIMP is without doubt one of the best hip-hop records to ever come out of Scotland.
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