nurse - hereditary

Everything here feels washed in a really dark shade of midnight blue. The beats here bang and jangle on the surface, but beneath the swans on the cover is a sea of melancholy, either longing for someone or something, or just floating on. The tape gives off a really similar atmosphere to something like egoseed’s recipere last year in that it seems to sit under a lonely starry night, but nurse takes a very different approach to portray this setting, opting for very textured swinging instrumentals that groove fluidly throughout the runtime. I love how the various percussive elements mimic the feel of each sample in a way that gives each beat such depth, like the shakers that move and bend with the guitar on ‘alleged’. The chops on this seem to carry so much tension and release, with dark clouds mostly hanging over each but occasionally letting the sunlight stream through, like the gloomy run of the fast half taking a quick switch in tone with the gorgeous ‘aeiou.’ The pacing of hereditary constantly keeps you intrigued and wondering what direction it’s going to go in next, and despite the beautiful melancholy that seems to pour through, the little moments of optimism make it worth listening to again and again.

KEY BEAT: what - the sample on this really reminds me of something Clams Casino or Porter Robinson would’ve approached differently in the early 2010s, bittersweet in nature with rims clicking and hihats dragging.