TELEPHONEBOOTH: ALBUM REVIEW
Wiki is becoming a legend in the New York underground scene. He is a bonafide veteran who continues to push the boundaries of his sound and consistently works to innovate. His newest project, a collaboration with the noise-rap producer NAH titled Telphonebooth, continues to push forward. Wiki and NAH deliver a series of noisy vignettes that don’t ever reach a conclusion. Telephonebooth is ugly and dirty, but keeps you thinking about its potential. It sounds like it’s on the cusp of something new, and the more you listen to it the more you get out of it.
The most eye-opening aspect of this project is the production. NAH has a way of crafting beats that sound both ugly and shimmering. The song “Truth be Told” features a gritty bass guitar riff that muddles the song. At points, you can barely hear Wiki’s vocals as the low-end is completely drowned in sound. But about halfway through the one-minute long track, we get a beat switch and the bass completely disappears. This opens the track up and completely shifts the focus away from the beat and towards Wiki’s high-pitched voice.
If you have listened to any of Wiki’s previous projects – both his solo work or his earlier work in the groundbreaking hip-hop group RATKING – you know that he has one of the most unique voices in rap. Wiki doesn’t really spit, he yelps out gritty and gutteral bars. The beats on Telephonebooth disrupt his normal rhythm. NAH’s beats are so noisy that they reign in Wiki’s vocals, the instrumentals force him to adjust so he is often trailing the beat rather than riding it. On songs like, “Hip Hop” this dynamic plays out perfectly, as Wiki flows over a start-and-stop drum rhythm, never letting him quite find the pattern. This dynamic adds new elements to every song as the listener gets to see what makes their producer-rapper partnership special.
Even though all the noise, there are several moments of musical bliss that take this project to the next level. The song “No Work” features beautiful harp chords and off-kilter drum patterns and some incredible bars from Wiki. He spits, “Woke up right side of the bed, but today I’m not thinkin’ about bread.” The entire song is about how sometimes you just feel too good to work, which is a feeling that I think we all understand but is rarely vocalized. This album is full of these moments where Wiki perfectly sums up common emotions in poetically simple ways.
This album feels incomplete, which works both for and against the project. The album is fourteen tracks long, but most songs are well under two minutes. The brevity works incredibly on tracks like “Frogskins” which feel self-contained, but tracks like “Shit Blood” end out of nowhere leaving you wanting much more. The short lengths of these tracks give the entire album an abstract feel: the project never quite lets you get comfortable.
Telephonebooth is a step forward for both artists. Wiki is settling further into his role as an NYC veteran, and NAH is moving further into his role as an in-demand producer. Hopefully, both artists continue to build in this direction and build out a sound that not many artists are exploring.