Atmosphere

Atmosphere, that dynamic duo of emcee Slug and producer Ant — are back with another collection of dope tracks for the backpacker community. Ant is handy on the boards, whipping up dense waves of psychedelic hip-hop drone for Slug to swim through as he leads us on his anxiety-ridden tales on "Panic Attack.” Slug is a deft emcee, using the mundane moments of everyday life to compose comedic, head-nodding sing-a-long songs. On "Watch Out,” he drops the absurdist couplets "Besides police I got no beef/Just me my beliefs and my bad teeth” and "Caught between the vice and the ad-vice/Drunk, walking out in traffic just to fly kites.” As he explains, he stitched together a style from LL Cool J (before he started singing to girls), Big Daddy Kane, KRS One and others, but filtered through a white kid those styles make for an idiosyncratic style. "Musical Chairs” and "Hockey Hair” are topics that don’t get play in the mainstream, but here they capture the original boom-bap that went missing from rap so long ago. For those who crave something with more soul, it’s time to get onboard with the two of the underground’s funkiest.