Hey, buddy, did you hear the news? It's track reviews.

Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you're doing well.

Yeah, let's dig into a real classic track review type video where I go over a new song coming from the one and only Mr. Quadeca, aka Ben Lasky, a once YouTube rap artist who has now evolved in a very short period of time into a musical polymath of sorts, putting out numerous impressive projects over the years, packed with great songs, but also tracks that stylistically and esthetically come from a lot of different places.

It's just been impressive to continue to watch him grow and change as an artist, even as he has gained this unforeseen level of critical acclaim among some of the most discerning and picky music fans out there. Not usually the type of respect and adoration you see getting thrown toward artists who at one time were climbing up the ladder of YouTube rap.

Although from what I understand, that Epic Rap Battles of History channel, they're coming out with a vinyl record. Let me know in the comments if you're going to get that so that we can block you. No, I'm kidding. We're not going to do that. No, we're going to pin every comment from somebody who's going to buy that record.

Well, anyway, if you're unfamiliar with Quadeca at this point, I think you should get familiar, especially with the highly conceptual and narrative I Didn't Mean to Haunt You. Really a fan favorite of his, one that I enjoyed quite a bit myself, but I was actually even more impressed in a way with its very strange experimental and ragtag follow-up, this Scrapyard compilation project, which featured a bunch of tracks and material that I could understand, not necessarily fitting on an album that had a more cohesive vision to it as the song concepts and instrumentals are a little all over the place.

But still, for me personally, that was the appeal. All these tracks culminated into a really interesting series of fusions, bringing together elements of lofi bedroom pop and indie folk, emo, and hip hop, too.

While in one breath, it was clear this project was packaged to be perceived as maybe like a bit of a one-off in the Quadeca discography, it was still a really impressive feat for Ben to have crafted so many impressive songs that stylistically come from so many seemingly disparate places, and yet it all works together so cohesively.

I expect maybe a little bit more of that same energy on this upcoming album, especially given this recent transmission from Ben in regards to the upcoming record and the new single. The album is titled Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, and Ben promises that no two songs on this are alike, which has made choosing singles a difficult task.

"Part of me doesn't believe in singles, and the other part of me wants every song to have its own universe. I can't wait to reveal the full picture."

Which is quite the expectation to set for an upcoming album. Though, to play Devil's Advocate, I will say I do disagree a little bit with at least what we've heard so far of the single sounding completely different.

If you guys have been paying attention, the two tracks we have heard from this record so far are "Monday", the latest one, and then previous to that, "Godstained".

That one, in a lot of ways, was an interesting and unlikely fusion of genres that came together really cohesively, like many songs from Scrapyard, because you had elements of baroque folk, very lush, lavish instrumentation, neo-soul, pop, soul, songwriting style that was very akin to artists like Frank Ocean.

While simultaneously, you could pick out little elements of Marvin Gaye in there, too. You had that dramatic little rap bridge on the back end of the song that flowed in very seamlessly as well. Once again, it's Quadeca flexing every stylistic muscle that he possibly has in his musical arsenal and all of it working out really well in the process.

If I could further describe and compare this track, I would say it feels almost like a more mature and impressively arranged version of a song that could have been on the Scrapyard EP series or full project, were it actually maybe more raw or noisy or something like that. But instead, in this instance, it's covered with more high-grade, beautiful, expensive-sounding instrumentation.

I would say that's also the case for this latest single over here, "Monday", which, again, I do think if there's a repeating theme going on here, aesthetically anyway, it's that the instrumentation is sounding a lot more lavish. There are more strings. It's one of his most clean and high-grade sounding recordings yet. And he even seems to be drifting a little bit away from some of the noisier and more experimental instrumental palettes that we heard on I Didn't Mean to Haunt You, too.

With this upcoming album, I am most definitely expecting some elements of experimental music, maybe even a bit of noise at some point, somewhere, given that that has been at least a pretty consistent influence as Quadeca has broadened his musical aesthetics.

But it does seem like he's taking a conscious on these two new tracks to make music that does sound like it generally and genuinely beautiful on the ears, very ornate and very pretty. I would say that is especially true of "Monday" over here, which is this very whimsical little baroque folk baroque pop tune with a very waltz-type groove to it.

I would say the poetry on this track runs as very quaint and very sad, too, as we have been addressing feeling older on this track. It seems almost as if he's describing a relationship or a connection that is just not doing too well. It's almost like on the way out. It's seeing better days for sure.

His way of explaining this or exploring these feelings is making a lot of consistent illusions and metaphors toward laundry and clothing, be it the line about him airing out his heart on a line or the series of lines a coat that he's wearing and having a trick up his sleeve.

The line about him putting on his hat as well in the third verse of the track. Even the runway line in the chorus could be alluding to this, too. It could be a fashion runway or maybe like an airplane runway, which in the context of the line is a place where you most definitely don't want to be losing your grip.

But yeah, I'm loving the fact that Ben on these two new tracks is making music that sounds so pretty, sounds so lovely, but he is sidestepping the trap that some artists fall into going in this direction when they create something unintentionally bland.

I mean, these tracks, thankfully, don't sound anywhere near bland or flavorless or boring. They're detailed, they're gorgeous, they're captivating, they're spellbinding. His vocals fit really well on these instrumentals whether he's singing, whether he's rapping. And the lyricism consistently comes across as thoughtful on these tracks, too.

So I don't know, despite Ben's public statement here, while I do know he is a very versatile artist and musician, I have a hard time with this record seeing him release an album where literally no two songs sound alike in any way. I mean, as versatile as his style has proven to be, when you look at the aesthetics and the musical influences that go into records like Haunt You, the record previous to that, or even Scrapeyard, these records do sound pretty cohesive. All the songs feel like they're meant to be together, be it through them sharing similar production techniques or having a storyline, pulling all of it together.

So again, I don't think Ben is to give us a record over here where it's all over the place to a fault. Somehow with him dealing in as many genres as he does, he has avoided that pitfall. But no doubt, with this upcoming LP, there is going to be versatility.

And look, as much as I think these two new singles so far share a lot of overlap, there are serious differences between them. I mean, from the baroque pop feel of this latest track and the more soul songwriting inspo of "Godstained", clearly there's at least some versatility, some separation between these two tracks. I don't think both of these cuts would be investing so much time in the instrumentation sounding so lavish and so pretty and so ornate and so enchanting if that wasn't going to be something that Ben made sure to follow through on with at least some more of the tracks on the album.

But yeah, with that being said, those are my thoughts on these two new tracks. Definitely an album that I'm looking forward to. Let me know what you think of the Quadeca singles so far. Are you excited for this upcoming LP? You're the best. Thank you for watching. And yeah, obviously, review for the entire record when it eventually comes out.

Anthony Fantano. Quadeca. Forever.