Steve 'Flash' JuonTo the best of my ability I try not to let my review choices be dictated by trends. I may be making an incorrect assumption by saying so, but I have to believe the supporters of RapReviews want us to cover what’s interesting or important, not simply chase an algorithm for the sake of visibility. This intro is a self-serving excuse to draw a direct comparison to Kay the Aquanaut. In a career that spans from 2001 to the present day, I don’t think there’s a single time anyone said “Kristian Powlowski made that song/EP/album because that’s what’s hot right now.” In fact it’s far more likely this is your FIRST TIME hearing about Kay. That’s how untrendy he is. I just made up “untrendy” out of whole cloth but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t fit him perfectly.
Kay has the advantage of being from Saskatoon, which is just large enough to be the 19th largest city in Canada, but just small enough to allow an unconventional rapper to develop his own sound without being unduly influenced by the prevalent sounds of a super-saturated rap scene. If he was from Toronto, New York, Miami or Compton then Kay wouldn’t sound like this. He also has the advantage of working with Factor Chandelier, a producer who hails from the same area who is equally divorced from the rap mainstream. That allows him to craft sonic experiments like “Ancient Historian” where Kay floats between singing and rapping without missing a beat. “My blood’s full of mercury and asteroid dust/the universe is my heart/my brain just like Saturn is controlling our performance.”
It sounds both composed and disjointed, a “love as big as the bang at the beginning” that’s nearly a stream-of-consciousness spilling out of Kay’s mouth while on anesthesia. Under different circumstances you might think this Aquanaut was unhinged. If he was standing on a street corner, holding up a sign and begging for change, you’d think his words were strange and even deranged. “The mind is a malleable alloy legacy arrowhead from the stars” quips Kay on “For Sirius.” I don’t think he’s crazy though. Well… at least not in a dangerous way. It takes a healthy kind of crazy to commit to making rap music this interesting that also has very little chance of making him wealthy or famous.
Despite having a career that spans three decades, I stumbled into “New Physics” through a YouTube channel that only had 87 subscribers. Now let’s not draw too many conclusions about those numbers. His having a channel at ALL may simply be a result of an auto-generated upload through an imprint like Side Road, in which case having any number of subscribers is a happy accident. Coincidentally that’s how I feel about listening to this album. I already knew of Factor and had reviewed his work, so how had I never heard his collaborations with Kay before this one? I don’t know. As a duo they remind me of the early works of anticon. though — albums that drew derision for being too avant garde but have since come to be highly regarded for pushing the boundaries of what rap music could be.
“I’m a vulture, I’m a peregrine falcon/I’m the brightest burning light up in the sky/dead gods all around me.” I would tell you that Kay and Factor are spitting in the face of convention, but that would imply they cared enough about convention to hawk tuah on that thang to begin with. Every now and then I hear an album that I enjoy that I get a sneaking suspicion was made JUST FOR ME, the rap reviewer bored with AutoTune and gunplay and ostentatious displays of wealth. “You don’t understand the language but there’s always the next life” says Mr. Aquanaut. I feel this vibe in a personal way I suspect many of you won’t, but if you are one of the supporters I mentioned at the start then you know talking about “New Physics” matters. We need different, diverse kinds of rap music for that aspect of hip-hop culture to remain vibrant and healthy. These physics make dead gods come back to life.