Feel Eclipseye’s “Whap Clatter”
By Deuce
It was once said of rap (back in the early 1990s), that its entire appeal was the fact that it was unconventional, bereft of formal structure and musical progressions, chord changes and, for the most part, instrumentation. It was said that it was a deliberate jumble of all of these things, or perhaps none of them.
Yet somehow, it seemed to always work as a cohesive bed of sound with which to deliver vocals.
The verisimilitude, or even accuracy, of that sentiment is perhaps dubitable in nature. Regardless, Eclipseye’s “Whap Clatter”, which dropped on All Hallow’s Eve of this year, quite fittingly enough, seems to take up this mantra.
Now mind you, it’s not even necessarily rap, in the conventional sense, that is. Certainly the vocals are imbued with an unmistakable cadence. There are a fair amount of rhymes, near rhymes, and dearth of rhymes, too. But the track, that which the vocalist is responding to with his wordplay, is pure chaos. We’ve got snatches of opera singing, a crystal clean snap for a snare, and some parts of ultra deep dubstep-esque bass throbbing in the back.
But other than that, there’s a certain organized confusion for you ATLiens: a lack of clarity in the instruments or sounds, even, that Eclipseye—which appears to be an individual, not a group—feels compelled to vocalize on.
Now granted, one of the principle points of unclearness on the track is the artist’s very voice itself. It’s dark, heavy, and dominant, which is the very mood for the music. However, his voice and multi-syllabic verbal posturing is so predominant, that it occludes the individuality of the sounds populating this tune. One still gets the overall feel of course, and the almost triple stage darkness effect he’s going for. But a lot of that is through his thick British accent, the very texture of his voice, and how he chooses to manipulate it.
For the most part those manipulations are characterized by a certain deftness, although they seem to be just a step or two behind the pace of what is known as “flowing”. You might be able to catch a word or two of his lyrics the first run through of this number, but it’s difficult to perceive much more than that.
Perhaps that’s all the more incentive to run it back.
