Sheefy McFly and Lord Scrummage -Smoking Triangles- Self Release

Acid-funk sprinkled onto soulful R&B gets slapped atop a gritty but groovy aesthetic for this local album, sandwiched together thanks in part to rapper Sheefy McFly and singer-keyboardist-producer Alex Lauer. Lauer plays with art-pop collective Lord Scrummage while Mcfly (aka Tashif Turner) regularly reels often raunchy but earnest raps under his solo moniker or for rock-tinged outfit the Delorean. Both were intrigued by their uniquely genre-defiant ideas and started swapping instrumentals, layering synths, reworking beats and then backed the fledgling tracks with the sweet, soulful voice of Scrummage’s Jade Lathan. Their irreverent and edgy styles certainly complement each other well, but these electro-heavy jams are held up by the disarming musicianship of each collaborator. Yes, Sheefy’s bars are blunted with cartoonish delinquency, but you can’t deny his ear for effectively enticing beats. And, yes, the folks in the Scrummage cohort sound like psychedelic Oscar Wildes, like cockeyed satirists splashing in day-glo gutter puddles, but you can’t deny their sensibility for arranging some groovy smooth-jazz-feeling trips and augmenting it all with a tasteful dash of electronic atmospherics. Weird raw rap meets weird raw space-funk. Simple, strange, effective.  —Jeff Milo