RELEASED 2016
LABEL Warp Records / Border Music
“It’s the downward spiral, got me suicidal/ But too scared to do it so these pills will be the rifle.”
That’s how Detroit rap phenom Danny Brown kicked off the second verse of the title track to his breakout 2011 mixtape XXX, and his astounding new album and Warp debut Atrocity Exhibition picks up right where that record left off.
Brown began work on Atrocity Exhibition in the summer of 2014, linking up with frequent
collaborator Paul White on the bulk of the album’s cuts. “Me and him are the same way,” Brown enthuses on the pair’s partnership. “He’s out there, and I’m out there too. We just want to make music…You never heard nobody rapping over this type of production before. This is not regular rap.”
Indeed: Atrocity Exhibition is one of the freshest and boldest-sounding rap albums in recent memory, a sonic swirl inspired by the work of Talking Heads and Joy Division that nonetheless sounds like nothing else from the past or present. Along with contributions from producers like Evian Christ, Petite Noir, Black Milk and The Alchemist, White and Brown are absolutely in the pocket on Atrocity Exhibition. The pair fashion laser-beam guitars, creaking vocal samples, and air-raid drones into the most intriguing take on hallucinatory rap since the heady heights of Cold Vein or Madvillainy.
The intricate wordplay, unmatched storytelling, and lyrical thoughtfulness of Atrocity Exhibition further cements Danny Brown as not only one of rap’s brightest lights, but one of the most consistently inventive artists working in popular music right now. The record represents an unbelievable artistic peak, “I feel like this is the first Danny Brown album,” he ruminates on the record’s accomplishments. “Before, I felt like I was trying to fit in—but for the first time, I feel like I’m making music for me. I know Danny Brown’s sound, and I’m just doing what Danny Brown knows how to do.”
Track Listing:
DISC 1:
Downward Spiral
Tell Me What I Don't Know
Rolling Stone (featuring Petite Noir)
Really Doe (featuring Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul & Earl Sweatshirt)
Lost
Ain't It Funny
Goldust
White Lines
Pneumonia
Dance In The Water
From The Ground (featuring Kelela)
When It Rain
Today
Get Hi (featuring B-Real)
Hell For It
