REVIEW: Welp Disney & lonelygirl15 - LONESOME DOVE
Let me start with a warning. If you go into LONESOME DOVE expecting it to be a lookalike of lonelygirl15’s other recent releases, you’re gonna get sucker punched (like I did). The project title should’ve been my first clue. It’s a far cry from the tone of her album release earlier this year, the chaotic and hypnotic Spankbank Vol. 1.
With LONESOME DOVE, a collaboration between lonelygirl15 and fellow experimental hip hop artist Welp Disney, the two stare head-on into “the gender fun-house mirror,” addressing a pervasive sense of “social dysplasia” with earnestness, specificity, and skillful musicality. The scope of this EP expands well beyond what seven songs could convey, dwelling in the ADHD-like processing of pressures and uncertainties within community, time, and even one's own body and mind. But there’s also a kind of reverence in this, calling attention to the resiliency and transformation that comes along with (and sometimes in spite of) it all. Welp Disney and lonelygirl15 traverse these themes across this industrial hip-hop project, its tracks riddled with notions of punk and poeticism.
The EP opens cinematically with “Hand Me Down,” where warmth emanates from a soft jazz-lull and echoey vocals float overtop. It’s a gentle entry to the project, with an outro that acts as a foyer to its more brutal moments. It culminates there in short-circuit palpitations, propelling us into the heavier, darker “Yulp.” This second track erupts into siren-like guitar and strained cries, occasionally quieted by a series of understated bars that pace the song forward in a steady rhythmic stumble.
There’s no dancing around the heaviness of this project. It’s innate, woven into the fabric of each track—every one a compulsive rumination perhaps best exemplified in “Ozymandias”: I’m running out of time/it feels like everything is happening all at once/ and I’m fully getting shrink wrapped/and I’m stuck waiting in line to buy something that I’m not sure that I want/and I want to be one with everything/things don’t shine like the way they used to. In reflective, spoken-word rap, the lyrics play over a rumble of synth and distant melodic cries, all swathed in the thin staticky fuzz that blankets the entirety of the EP, like film over a frame.
One of the most compelling tracks is the EP’s closer, a lyrical feat entitled “Woman Without A Country.” This one has teeth, shooting from the hip with vivid musings (blood viscosity/love animosity/the dichotomy of dishonesty….spit on the face of father time/my existence is a hate crime/can’t walk in a straight line) and unspooling over a trudging beat coated in dissonance. It feels like the whole album is leading up to this—a consequence of layering aggrievances and bearing the weight of carrying them.
The overwhelming heaviness of this EP sits opposite of the hard-hitting humor and gender euphoria that typically trademarks lonelygirl15’s songwriting. Still, intimations of both are retained in this project, offering up brief glimpses of humor within its strife: pinpricks of light, stark against their backdrop. Much in this way, LONESOME DOVE repurposes some of the most striking aspects of these artists’ respective styles. Almost by nature, Welp Disney’s production seems to toe the line of juxtaposition, building a soundscape where the ethereal and industrial cohabitate - with bite, but without friction. It’s paired with lonelygirl15’s confounding and ever-inventive lyricism—specifically, the ability to cut straight to the meaning of something within only a few lines, and just as soon arrive at the next point with equal impact—along with an animated delivery that flexes its muscles every which way.
Their skill sets merge here in an album unique to both of their discographies, and it feels almost distressing that another partnership of these two isn’t yet promised for the future. But if there’s anything that’s truly characteristic of these artists, it’s that they thrive in experimentation. LONESOME DOVE also feels assuring in this way; it’s evidence of them stretching even further, finding new avenues for their respective sounds to diverge from what they’re known for. If this is any indication of what lies beyond those old comfort zones, I can’t wait to see what’s ahead for them.
LONESOME DOVE by Welp Disney and lonleygirl15 is out now on all streaming platforms. Go check it out ;)