The Long, Long Awaited Return of Written On Your Psyche

Remember a couple years ago when I got super excited to discover a terrific, contemporary NJ hip-hop record but a group I'd never heard of at a record sale?  Well, that group was Written On Your Psyche, and while I discovered it in 2011, it had actually come out in 2005; and that was their newest record.  Admittedly, there had been a couple of solo mix-CDs and mp3-only stuff in the meantime, but that's still eleven years since their last official release.  You couldn't blame a fan for feeling discouraged.  But they're back!  With vinyl!

If you remember in my first Written video, I talked about how after going through their earlier material, I found that they had distinct musical phases.  Instrumentally, at least, first album Written On Your Psyche didn't sound like second album Written On Your Psyche.  And yep, this is another new phase with an all new sound.  Although if you heard their online-only album Superman Is Dead, that does go some way towards bridging the gap.  But still, this sounds completely different from Grounded, I'd say largely because they're not working with the incredible producer they had at that time, Saheeb.  So really, they've got a tall mountain to climb to live up to those days.

And do they pull it off?  I'd say pretty successfully, yes.  It's not 100% equal to their classic "In Control" 12".  But this time, handling all their own production, they've come up with a fresh sound for themselves that really clicks.  There's a cool consistency to this EP that not only says these songs belong together, but are also distinct from their previous records.  It's got a very atmospheric (the record opens with ambient sounds, for God's sake) intellectually calm kind of vibe, with a lot of moody synths.  Like something the BBC would score an 80s sci-fi miniseries with, plus boom-bap drums.

If you're not that familiar, Written is two guys, Poet Substratum and Bolical Jenkins.  I could be mistaken, but it feels to me like Poet's really taken the lead in conceiving the songs here.  My favorite track is the opener, "Mystery," which takes the basic battle/ rapping about rapping core to new, metaphysical heights, using wild space and time imagery to push the limits of our reality.  This really is as good as the Grounded material, just in a different way.  "Only God Knows" has a great sound, and "Star Speech" is some fun, crazy new age rap shit.  The title track is actually my least favorite song, though it's got a great hook ("it's that rhyme by the candle, but the mountain breeze don't blow it out, though"), and I can see why it became the thematic link for the full EP.

Now, this is 2016, so of course there is a digital counterpart to this EP that you can download from bandcamp.  But apart from coming in an attractive picture cover, the limited (only 250 copies) wax release also has an exclusive vinyl-only bonus track called "F.I.N.E."  You can hear immediately why it's a bonus track, separate from the body of the EP.  Instrumentally it's less ethereal, and lyrically it's, uh, even further in that direction.  It's sort of like an update of Kool G Rap's "Truly Yours."  Yeah, Kool G Rap already did an update of "Truly Yours" with Pete Rock, but that was for the 90s, and this one speaks to 2016 audiences, with updated lyrics like, "The chick was bad, but she was crazy, too. I'd find her home crying about every day or two. Depressed as Hell, paranoid as shit; but while I'm deep inside the pussy I ignore the shit.  Can't ignore those hips, and yeah she has prescriptions for this; of course daddy issues."  The titular acronym stands for "Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional."  it's distractingly immature, but it works as an upbeat closer - a sort of undercutting antidote to a much more serious work - though I wouldn't want a whole album of "F.I.N.E."s.

So if you're a fan, you'll definitely want to score the wax while you can.  And it does also come with a download card for a convenient digital copy.  And if you're a more serious fan, you might also want to look into Psyche Visuals, a slim poetry book by Substratum collecting verses from a bunch of his past songs.  Each page has lyrics to one of his past songs (some unreleased solo stuff, and a few from Superman Is Dead), and the reverse has a nice, if brief, paragraph explaining each song.  He's also collected all of the songs into a free compilation on his bandcamp so you can listen along to the book.  Pretty classy, but I'd say that's more for the die-hard fans.  For more casual listeners, I just recommend the Mountain Breeze record, which you can cop here.

Written Off Your Psyche

You might remember me ranting about how excited I was by a couple really great releases by an underground NJ rap group called Written On Your Psyche a couple years ago. Unfortunately, by the time I'd discovered them, they'd already split up. So even though you could still go back and pick up their old records, it was definitely a bummer. But just because they split up doesn't mean they quit music. In fact, what I have today is All Of a Sudden, a solo CD by Psyche's Poet Substratum, now going simply by Poet, released by Delinquent Soundz in 2008.

Right off the bat, this is not as good as the WOYP material that got me so excited in the first place. But that's a very high benchmark; and taken on its own terms, it's a pretty neat, underground album.

Poet is definitely playing from a weaker position without Bolical Jenkins to rebound off of, but he's hurt more by the lack of Saheeb Bad Health on the boards. The lush, vibrant music of the later WOYP is not here, and that's a shame. Really, if you haven't picked up Grounded and the "In Control" 12", you need to do that shit. But, just because this album isn't playing on that level doesn't mean it isn't worth your time; so let's look at what we actually do have on here.

The music here is provided by a variety of producers. I don't know who DefDom is, but he provides two very nice tracks that come close to matching the Psyche sound. One of those tracks is hampered by a sappy, sung chorus; but that's the only corny hook on the whole album. Venomous, another Delinquent Soundz artist, loops some great samples on two more tracks. And DJ IRIS concocts a wild, percussion-heavy beat with a really funky old school vibe. Custodian of Records cooked up two chunky tracks in his traditional style (always a good thing); and WOYP's DJ Priority is back to provide some nice cuts for this album.

So that's about half the tracks - definitely worthwhile. Two more are just skits you'll definitely want to skip. Then the rest are more generic, indie hip-hop fare. Decent but not too exciting. On his own, Poet definitely sounds thinner. He does get a bunch of guests to help out - including Venomous, Phonetic, Skitzo & Victor KJ. They basically all wind up occupying the same space as Poet, though, so it doesn't feel like much is changing when the mic is passed. Only Skitzo really manages to bring a welcome shift in energy towards the end of the album. 

Lyrically, it's alright. Not much stands out as exceptional, and only one song (the juvenile "Please Don't Go") stands out as poor. The best verses are cool; the rest just equate to filler. Nothing wrong with it, nothing compelling about it. Here's a random sample: "Miss you as we wish you all bon voyage. Yo, my doctor says my lungs look more like London fog. Phonetic brought a bag and I brought my bong. Yo, we're patterning our philosophies on Cheech and Chong." Like... it's kind of clever? He comes off better when he's writing a conceptual song, like "Motivation," which is really a solid effort on all fronts. But most of the time he's just spitting verses it's hard to muster a strong opinion on.

The album ends with "Written Tape." I don't know if it was recorded for this album or (as the opening skit implies) dusted off from their vaults. But either way, it's a proper WYOP song, with Bolical back to trade verses with Poet. It's produced by Chicken Sandwich (uh?), who also did Written's early, pre-Saheeb material. It's fresh, and the hearing the pair reunite sounds as good as you'd hope. It's a really great, fun song.

So it probably reads like I'm pretty tepid on this album; and you might even wonder why I bothered to write about it. Well it's true, I am tepid on this album over all; but the highlights are high enough that they should be checked out. Hell, I'd get this album just for "Written Tape;"  But songs like "Motivation," "Cleaning Wit the Custodian" and "Lookin One Way" really are first class, solid songs, too. And even the rest is at least decent album filler. And even though it's a six year old, super indie album; apparently it can still be found new from CDUniverse of all places. Or you can probably just find it online to download. So give it a shot; I'm glad to have my copy.

Press Rewind If They Haven't Blown Your Psyche

That link I mention is: delinquentsoundz.com
(Youtube version, dependably, is here.)