Gramatik, a genius musician, and producer from Slovenia released a new album titled Epigram a while ago. It is an incredible combination of hip-hop and electronic sounds with some mesmerizing tunes, lots of good lyrics, interesting collaborations, and a generally moving atmosphere.Epigram is a relatively short lasting album, but it has so much quality that those 36 minutes of playtime will be over in 20 minutes. Yes, it’s so good that theory of relativity will kick in while listening to it, making time flow faster while you are submerged in the world of Epigram.
Satoshi Nakamoto (the alleged name of Bitcoin inventor) sounds like it came from the future. It will put to shame big hip-hop names, and while listening to it you’ll probably wonder “who’s that Kendrick Lamar guy, I totally forgot about him since this song started.” Witty lyrics, perfect beats, and an incredible atmosphere make Satoshi one of the best hip-hop songs that got released in the recent years.Electronica and hip-hop are equally distributed across the album, making Epigram a constant shift in styles that will not be pleasant for everyone, but if you like both electronica and hip-hop, Epigram is a perfect album for you. There are some really nice songs, especially duo made from Native Son and its prequel, or Eat Liver a great, lively contemporary musical piece made with the help of Laibach, one of the cult bands coming from Slovenia.
The only bad moment on Epigram is War Of The Currents, a mashup of genres dominated by dubstep sounds that make the song practically unlistenable (I listened to it couple of times for the purpose of this review and really can say that the song could easily be deleted from the playlist without losing even tiniest bit of quality contained on the album).
All in all, Epigram is another strong effort from Gramatik, a contemporary music masterpiece that should be listened by everyone who is into this kind of music. Although there are some killer hip-hop tunes on this, it is best described as electronic music, but if you are into hip-hop, you’ll not be disappointed. BTW, if a chance appears, go to one of Gramatik’s live performances, it will be unbelievable, trust me.
