Album Review Rustie – Green Language
Stephen Weir, Published Thursday, August 21, 2014
The lifespan of the World Wide Web, from its genesis to its present day form, has been miniscule in the larger tech narrative. The internet is still in an infant state of sorts, simultaneously accommodating sleek “Web 2.0” aesthetics and older styles in a weird hybrid existence. The rapid rise of social media paired with antiquated methods of online interaction have left the ‘net in a state of flux - an online world that has become stranger and darkly comedic over time. We’re in an age when mainstays of the tech world die off and start-ups become corporate giants, all overnight. Along with pervasive piracy, rapidfire memetic trends, and the dark web, the internet is more like the old west than the new world.
And Rustie was like the electronic Lone Ranger. His first appearance came as North Americans began discovering their own brand of dubstep (now known as “brostep"), but his popularity was contingent on his incredible foresight. His debut album Glass Swords felt removed from the spacetime continuum, taking classic dubstep, old skool rave and video game music, and projecting them through a prism. There was literally nothing like it at the time. Its brash maximalism and infectious energy helped it survive the dubstep backlash. Thanks to its timeliness and timelessness, it was a cult hit. Even Hudson Mohawke, a popular artist often mentioned in the same breath as Rustie, couldn’t reproduce the introspective nostalgia and buoyant synths that made Glass Swords so easy to like.
But now, Rustie is living in the real world. His sophomore release Green Language turns in all of the maximalist, electronic giddiness of Glass Swords for flimsy loops and, well, trap. Trap is the word of the day for Green Language, and the power of Rustie’s old musical influences have given way to Hype Machine pandering. He’s no longer unstuck in time. Neither chopped up sitcom themes nor samples from video games are to be found here. The lead single "Raptor" foretold this change of style. Its blaring, headache-inducing synths and muddy kicks struck me as a parody of Rustie's sound rather than the genuine article. There was a distinct clumsiness to its track progression, and the drop timing was embarrassingly off. This made me wonder if Rustie's eternally fresh Glass Swords was ghost-produced. I couldn't believe those thoughts even crossed my mind. What was going on here? The follow-up single "Attak" fairs no better as it limped back and forth between two competing, incompatible loops. Danny Brown's frenetic flow, which has him throwing a James Joyce book's worth of unpunctuated prose to the wall and seeing what sticks, is the saving grace of this track.
Green Language itself has two intro tracks of meandering synth wankery before "Raptor" comes up in all its undercooked glory. The album constantly cycles through interludes, with roughly half of the tracklist made up of these flaccid, pointless detours. Other than Danny Brown, few of the features feel appropriate. Numbers protégé Redinho uses his tedious talkboxing over a sleepy instrumental in "Lost,| and grime heavyweight D Double E hits a career low in "Up Down.” Midpoint highlight "Velcro" is one of the few genuinely enjoyable tracks, but its lazy composition holds it back, and leaves those attuned to the ebb and flow of professional production cold.
The electronic Lone Ranger has been reduced to a dimestore cowboy, and the thought of that saddens me. Rustie was the counterpoint to bullshit mainstream EDM artists. Now, he’s a pale imitation of them. He’s inching closer to his obsolescence date. Other trap producers are finding fresh new avenues to travel, including TNGHT, lsdxoxo, and AMDisc's lineup of artists making "chill trap.” Even Rustie's own "Triadzz" won over a few ambivalent fans last year. However, Green Language is not a convincing reason to abandon his original sound. In a recent feature on Pitchfork, Rustie mentioned how an album's worth of material was sidelined for being too similar to the "over the top silly" Glass Swords. Such a shame. It appears Rustie has fallen on his glass sword.