2 out of 5

Produced by: Ecid

Label: Fill in the Breaks

Werewolf Hologram put him on some broader maps; Pheremone Heavy confirmed Ecid’s place as an oddball-rapper auteur, his slow roll rap style melded to the glitchiest of glitch beats, and a lyrical stew of crassness and emotional fire.

Prior to this, the man had not only earned his chops as an excellent producer (for artists on his label, Fill in the Breaks, as well as elsewhere), but a plethora of pre-Werewolf albums displayed his ability to sync to classic hip-hop beats (Biograffiti), or cuts produced by others (100 Smiles), or to find the rhythm in dissected tracks like those on Economy Size Godd Costume.  In other words, Jason McKenzie is pretty damn skilled, and though I totally would agree that his off-beat style and tendency for body-effuse-inspired metaphors is an acquired taste, I don’t think Ecid can ever be accused of being outright boring to listen to.

…Until I had a chance to sit with Post Euphoria Vol. 1 & 2.

Two EPs released as something of a preview to Pheromone Heavy in the years between it and Werewolf, the music on the Post Euphoria volumes (later gathered into one with some bonus tracks) comes across, in retrospect, as sketches: there are sounds we would hear repurposed to much better effect on Pheromone, while at the same time, the majority of the tracks don’t achieve anything close to the layering Ecid has put into every other album.  Which isn’t to say that the cuts are bad, and most of them – even in a stripped down state – display McKenzie’s get-yer-toe-tapping intuitions – but as part of that sketch / demo sensibility, any good moment gets diverted by disruptive bridges, or very odd stops and stars.  …Like an experiment; like a warm-up.  The lyrics would seem to follow suit, going for some of the most lazy and gross imagery Ecid had conjured yet – lots of poops and dicks – but without any real clear target to which to apply those images.  So while I certainly roll my eyes at his juvenile approach on occasion, that he delivers it with force at an intended target generally tends to win me over.  It’s telling that, on Post Euphoria, one of the few tracks that seems to generate any lyrical heat is a redo of an older track – Akmude Sallam, from Biograffiti.

The compilation isn’t without its merits: opener Burn Everything is pretty damn hot, no pun intended, and BADASS of the Century feels as fleshed out as some of the Pheromone Heavy stuff.  And to be fair, my low rating is one of comparison to other Ecid joints, which I generally find pretty radical.  Post Euphoria would be more impressive on its own, but stood next to the rest of McKenzie’s catalogue, it’s lacking a lot of heart and soul; these are excess ideas that presumably got Jason hyped but that he couldn’t fit on to the next album.  So here’s a dump of material onto some EPs.  Coincidence that this is the only Ecid disc to also include the dumbass bane of a lot of hip-hop albums – inbetween-track sketches?

No.  It’s not a coincidence.  And the pop chorus of Communication Abuse…?  Nah.