Cold Hart- Uns4fe (Mixtape Review)
Cold Hart is an eminent member of the Seattle and Los Angeles-based collective Thraxxhouse, along with the likes of Shabazz Palaces/Digable Planets’ Ishmael Butler’s son Yung Bruh, cloud-rap emo singer Horse Head, gothic croaker Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, and rappers Mackned and Key Nyata, formerly of Raider Klan. Each of these members, along with a slew of other lesser-known artists, has created his own niche, and in the case of Wicca Phase and Horse Head, arguably entirely new genres, drawing equal parts from witch house, Kanye West’s 808’s & Heartbreak (2008), early-2000’s emo, and Spaceghostpurrp’s dark and spacious trap rap. Cold Hart is neither rapper nor singer; he’s somewhere in between, talk-singing his way through his excellent new mixtape Uns4fe, produced entirely by underground beatmaker Jayyeah. In it, his deep voice ethereally floats over sparse trap beats layered in copious auto-tune, covering a masterfully juxtaposed mix of spite and celebration, a theme to which his delivery lends emotional, powerful, contemplative and angsty strength. Opening tracks with lines like “She sayin’ that she hate me right now / So I’ma hit the city ridin’ around” on “She Don’t Luv Me,” Cold Hart zeroes in on the modern hipster youth’s deep issues, inviting you into his world of heartbreak, cyber life and cyber loss, courtship of tumblr girls, steady rotation of blunts, conscious hedonism and solipsistic apathy.
His subject matter and especially vocal delivery draws heavily on the digital mysticism created by Swedish artists Bladee and Thaiboy Digital of Yung Lean’s emergent Gravity Boys movement. In particular, he seems to have refined the otherworldly resonance of Bladee into a more steady rap-sing flow that wearily drifts into the ear. In effect, the young Asian-American has cemented a place as a novel creator and driver of an entirely new scene, maybe even genre of music. Let’s call it cyber psychedelia, or witch trap, or internet emo. Whatever it is, it is catchy, depressing, uplifting, and pricelessly repayable all at once. In particular the production style, maybe best exemplified in the Horse Head collaboration “Early Summer,” displays a unique blend trap beats and raw, melancholy acoustic guitar which was first really synthesized on Horse Head’s Romantic, released Valentine’s Day this year.
This short mixtape runs strong and smooth at 8 tracks and Cold Hart is able to hold his own, with only two features, both of which complement his style well. In this project as well as his V4mp1r3s (2014), .missed_calls (2014) and Foreign Rockstars (2015) with Tim Park, Cold Hart has deftly intermingled genres in a way that represents the very heart of what the Thraxxhouse movement is becoming. His themes and sound are well synced and provide a perfect soundtrack to breaking up, smoking by yourself and consequently coming up in the world, only to find those who once broke your heart turning into admirers, albeit too-late: heady stuff for anyone who spends most of their day in haze-filled clouds behind laptop screens. Thraxxhouse’s music is pushing what hip-hop means in 2015 and it’s sure to drive it into new, unexpected territory, and subsequent projects are more than hoped-for, they’re needed.
Final Rating: 9.0/10
