Emperor X The Orland Sentinel

There are a lot of dudes out there, these days, slinging their hat on the one-man (mostly) band bracket, playing up the slop sink, lost fidelity aesthetic like its a badge of homely honor as opposed to a first world reactionary privilege and some of them are good, surereally goddamn good, in fact but enough times out of ten theyre just total fucking bummers and who in the hell has time for that?

Not Emperor X.

Hes too busy writing songs on the cycle of igneous rocks, burying cassette tapes under Joshua trees or gigging out in laser tag arenas, post offices, underpasses and Israel in September while subtly rewiring the role of folk punk as pop art wrapped and raised with post-millennial absurdism.

Hes too busy having fun, imbuing his work with a profound sense of play too often ignored by artists on any shade of the pop culture or fidelity spectrum which is what makes his work so incredibly relevant and endearing to me. Even at his most somber, Emperor X echoes a grin, a joy that drives his melodies out from the singer/songwriter elegy straight to the place in the brain where earworms are fattened on whistling walks and inelegant shower sing-alongs.

And there are melodies aplenty on The Orlando Sentinel – Emperor Xs release of the moment – saddling electro-tropic rhythms, liberal beach clean guitar strings (Fierce Resource Allocation), boom box rally up rambles (Daytrader Stadium) and the weird world of anyday, unremarkable sociopolitical tenderness (Swim Laws). Theres also a whole lot of Fuck Art, Lets Dance! thrown in because this is an Emperor X record and if Emperor X decides what his Floridian herald needs is in-the-red, in-the-club beats, hyperactive ambient chillout post wave dynamics and a little something about Kafka presented as its own Ring Cycle as both complement and anathema to the standard song structures that populate the rest of the records purpose then thats exactly what Emperor X is going to do because hes Emperor X, goddamnit and Emperor X does as Emperor X sees fit because the life he leads is a masterwork of his own delight and invention.

Did I mention that Emperor X used to be a high school chemistry teacher? Kinda makes total sense, huh?

The Orlando Sentinel Tracklist:

SIDE A
1- FIERCE RESOURCE ALLOCATION
2- H.M.S. BLANK MEDITERRANEAN (FEAT. O. WITTCHOW
3- RING 1A: THE ORLANDO SENTINEL PRESS OPERATOR UNION RALLY SONG
4- RING 1B: SUBSUMED CLASS WAR
5- AT A RAVE WITH NICOLAS SARKOZY
6- DAYTRADER STADIUM
7- RING 2A: PROVING THE POLITBURO RIGHT
8- RING 2B: A.I.

SIDE B
1- SWIM LAWS
2- CARICOM (LAGOS VERSION FEAT. G. ROHDE)
3- RING 3A: REPO BROWSER VS. SCHENGEN OVERSTAY
4- RING 3B: TODOS SOMOS CARIBENOS
5- RING 3C: SARKOZY REPLIES
6- RING 3D: KAFKA GOES TO PRIMARK