It’s summer, it’s time for another psychedelic breakbeat trip from the far-out mind of Boston rapper/ producer/ director (he’s not one for delegation), Will C. The PR has it that the album is, “the only official account of what happened to Will C….after he mysteriously disappeared from his home base of Boston a year ago”. The LP video teaser (spliced together from 80s film excerpts) reveals that the album also tells of the “unexpected snags” encountered by “our rhyming hero.” These seem to have consisted of number of alarming encounters with frat boy bullies in letterman jackets, trigger-happy local cops, mysterious dark figures in darker limousines and, most frightening of all, a number of excessively chatty young women with big Farah Fawcett haircuts. It’s enough to make any man drop acid and wig out…
…Which is pretty much what you’re getting by the way. Any encounters you may have had with recent Will C adventures will have prepared you for the psychedelic Edan-meets-Brian Wilson nature of Runaway Train. Actually the ‘rhyming hero’ appellation is somewhat inappropriate from this drop because while Will C contributes vocals on this, rapper Will C is virtually absent and the hip-hop element is represented in the beats n samples production. But hey – it’s concept time folks, “Runaway, Train is a dedication to some of the earliest records Will remembers listening to as a child: the scratchy “story book” records of yesteryear, where a narrator – over a bed of sound effects and in-house instrumentation – reads an adventure aloud.” If you want something as profane as a proper single it does exist in the form of electro blues cut Q For Qasar but Runaway Train is really a whole album experience in a milieu where such a thing is increasingly rare. As Will C says on final track Son Rises In The East, “And any time you wanna go hear that story again, maybe, you know, bring it back, see what you missed and get the whole gist, yeah you can do that.” Then adds, “But if you don’t wanna think so hard every time and you just wanna unwind, stick around I’m telling ya, the second half got the instrumentals without the story on the b-side with all it’s glory…” Either way – stoners are going to get lost in this for months. And if you were hankering after something more conventional – the clue comes at the very end of the same track, “I’m out. I’ll be rising in the East. Peace.”
(Out now on Double You Productions)