- As micro-trends inflate at incomprehensible speeds and artists rush to occupy the same crowded niches, the question of what sets one artist apart from the others is almost as important as what they make in the first place. Hav Lyfe is another one of these cases. His debut full-length on the nascent Sonic Router label sees him crafting makeshift hip-hop out of oddly-shaped fragments and samples. That might not sound so unique in a world of cassette collages and stoned LA beatmakers, but Hav Lyfe's take on the cut-and-paste paradigm is genuinely unique. His knack for the proverbial knife and tape is rudimentary but natural—he renders strange shapes that sit just slightly askew, enough to raise eyebrows but also smooth enough to draw listeners in.
The beats on Hav Lyfe aren't just splinters of sound filtered into forced boom-bap. They're only really hip-hop in the sense that they repeat methodically with a little swing, and, judging from the song titles, that Mr. Lyfe enjoys a rap song or two. Opener "bb" sets the tone for the mongrel magic that will come: a single sample is repeated ad nauseum, queasily stretched and twisted with every new iteration. There are no percussive devices, no overlaid drums, but the track's ragged thud—a complete revolution of the loop—creates a beat of sorts anyways.
The effect is surprisingly mesmerizing, from the drum machines on "Civivic" to the trippy time-stretching of "My Man Kelly Moon From The Gavin," where it feels like the drums and synths are moving on two opposite conveyer belts. As simple as Hav Lyfe's approach may be, there are little moments of drama and melody that shoot up like geysers. As a result, the album tends to feel either too staid or too restless. It's hard to appreciate it from anywhere but a distance, and hard to remember much about it after it's done playing.
Though the songs are brief, every one lingers just a little longer than you'd expect it to, and longer than it should. It's just another bizarre touch on a record that loves to huff its own strange fumes, one that passes by quickly in a blinding shimmer and doesn't leave much behind other than a sense of bewilderment. "I just do it for myself to keep me sane," says the artist in the album's press release. It must have worked, because the music here definitely contains enough insanity for one person.
Tracklist 01. bb
02. Civivic
03. Dion2Cool
04. My Man Kelly Moon From The Gavin
05. Mond
06. No Title 22
07. Ocean Terace
08. U Aint Bout Dat Lyf
09. Wraplyf 2
10. Wristgame
11. Wanda Group - Moon Has Got Her Umbro On (How We Visualise Hav)