[Reaper16]

29. Jason Feathers – De Oro


This album didn’t get many favorable reviews, but I dug it. It’s a pop-rap project from Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Ryan Olsen (Gayngs), and Astronautalis about a gritty rapper from the Flora-Bama. This weird little side project is very similar to the movie Spring Breakers in vibe. The Pitchfork review especially detested this album for its lyrical content, and I agree to an extent. There’s no reason why this bordering-on-appropriation examination into the absurdities & quiet dignity of deep south rap as filtered through some alternate universe (which the Flora-Bama kind of IS) needs to exist. But it does and, hey, apart from the first two heavy-handed tracks I really dig the songs. They sound strange & menacing & campy-fun all at the same time. “Courtyard Marriot” sounds SO cool to me: it simultaneously revels in urban Southern movie soundtrack cliché while also “making the stone stony again” somehow, drawing attention to the South’s unexpected and expected strangenesses at the same time. “Sacred Math” is a lovely, quiet track built around an almost arrhythmic narrative of the main character’s history of spring break memories. Maybe I’m just an Astronautalis apologist, but this album is lots of fun to me.