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Minneapolis Hip Hop duo Atmosphere’s style has mutated ceaselessly over recent albums. Producer/DJ Ant’s been the shape-shifter on two preceding discs, abandoning underground rap tropes for funk-suffused golden-era boom-bap. His latest mutation features stripped instrumental loops, providing his partner an open interface. Accordingly, Slug’s voice is more musical, his cadence more varied, his narratives continually subverting conventions. ‘The Skinny’, for instance, chronicles a woman’s cigarette addiction as if she were an abused sex worker. Atmosphere breaches adulthood on this outing, whereas previous albums lingered in rap’s familiar late-adolescent mode. So for example, ‘Yesterday’ sounds like a ballad for an alienated friend (think 2Pac’s ‘I Ain’t Mad Atcha’), but ends up being about Slug’s recently deceased father. Even more promising than meditations on parenthood, though, is the MCs’ feminism. It’s long been implicit in Atmosphere albums, but it takes center stage here. The album’s not immediately gratifying like Atmosphere’s last couple, but it’s more rewarding.
