D-Sisive

It's been more than six months since Jonestown dropped, so you know D-Sisive's demanding release schedule calls for a new album, now! Opening track "Vaudeville (Friends Forever)" is a Mr. Rogers-like theme song, the soothing lullaby music warped to serve as an introduction to D-Siggy's playhouse. It's pure D-Sisive, but the artsy nature of the song may lose some hip-hop purists before they hear follow-up "The Riot Song," a banging braggadocio battle track with spacey sound effects that serves as a sequel of sorts to "Riot I Caused," his Classified collaboration from Let The Children Die. These first two tracks set the tone for much of the rest of Vaudeville: boom bap, battle rap and dark, introspective oddities, all with a heavy sprinkling of humour that prevents the music from becoming too morose. It's the same set-up he used on Let The Children Die and Jonestown, but what sets Vaudeville apart is production collaborator Fresh Kils' combination of live instruments, Moog and warped samples, which go beyond the melancholy music preferred by D-Sisive to create a crisp, clean sound that has the fluidity of a live band, albeit one that plays reggae, rock, blues, polka, children's songs and more. Containing very little filler, Vaudeville might just be a future classic. At the very least, it has the distinction of containing the first collaboration singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith has done with a hip-hop artist. Isn't that worth checking out?