Review: Captain Murphy "Duality"

What do you know about Captain Murphy? A mysterious rapper that hides behind a voice manipulator and a couple of prestigious producers? Anything else? Odds are, not much, other than the few tracks he dropped in the past. While these songs showcased great production, whacky lyrics and plenty of nice features (Earl Sweatshirt) it's hard to completely get behind something, or in this case someone, that you don't really know a lot about. Or maybe that's what makes everything more interesting?

Mystery in music has been a popular thing in the past few years, in the sense that the less you know about an artist or a band, the more popular they apparently become. For artists like Wu Lyf, Death Grips, the whole mysterious act worked out very well for them and increased their popularity by a long shot. Personally I enjoyed both of those artists regardless of their mysteriousness.

Then, in November of 2012, enigmatic rapper Captain Murphy drops his debut mix tape entitled Duality. The tape is accompanied by a 35 minute long video and is broken up into 8 "Lessons". Wether the songs fit into a theme within these lessons in unknown currently (surprise!) but to me it seems as if they don't. The sound of the tape as a whole is very reminiscent of Madlib's signature production on Madvillainy, where it relies heavily on intermissions and samples. Without these intermissions, the tape would be very short and would feature about 12 songs. 12 songs at 35 minutes. Unusually short for a rap release, with most clocking in at 20+ songs, which has always bothered me, so this is a nice change of pace. The sampling is at often times hilarious and vulgar, with one intro to a song being audio from pornos being layered so high it's almost unrecognizable and first listen, and a very crisp hit from a bong in another. The samples play a quinessential part in the storytelling and the sonic sound of this tape, occasionally sounding very charming.

When it comes to the actual rapping, while Murphy a newbie to the game, shows no signs of being one.          On single and album highlight "Between Friends", Murphy raps "So unorthodox: chillin' with a shaman, eatin' ramen in a parking lot". A nice little line that packs some imagery, swirls around your head and just leaves you grinning and just thinking what? The line appears earlier in the tape, so you know you're in for quite a ride. Unfortunately, the charm fades almost instantly afterwards. Almost every song that follows afterwards goes in one ear, and out the other, leaving you with nothing. Nothing to gain, nothing to retain. Most tracks on the tape are just a beat, and Murphy rapping over them, never really stopping or changing it up to make it interesting. Also, a large grain and lo-fi feel suffocates the entire tape and creates an annoying veil between you and the music. Lastly, my largest complaint about the tape is its ending. The tape ends with Murphy rapping over TNGHT's song "Bugg'n". While it may sound like a good idea on paper, it comes off as clumsy as it sounds like Murphy is struggling to make sense in his words and create a cohesive flow. Hopefull someday someone can come along and rap over these TNGHT beats and make it sound great.

It's been almost a week since this thing dropped and we still don't know who this Captain truly is. For me, all signs point to Flying Lotus and the Brainfeeder crew. If you just listen to the way his voice sounds on the tape and in real life and compare the two it's completely obvious. Also Odd Future could be involved, since some wordplay and flow on songs sound like the work of Tyler, the Creator.

Overall, the tape doesn't sit very well with me. The in one ear out the other style of it all just isn't my thing and it doesn't do a lot of things to keep it interesting. While some of the production is great (ie Between Friends) it all just sounds like too much of the same. It looks like being mysterious can't save you this time.

5/10