In the early aughts, two musicians — separated both by genre and geography — decided to collaborate on a set of tracks that would eventually comprise a full-length album.
Painstakingly created over ten months through a process of mailing CD-Rs back and forth, the project eventually adopted the name The Postal Service after the organization that assisted in its making. Cut to a decade later and not only has such cross-genre pollination become much more commonplace but the means of working together across great distances have also vastly improved.
Enter Scottish producer Rustie and Detroit rapper Danny Brown, who have only ever met in person once, but have relied on e-mail and Twitter to craft tracks such as “Dope Song,” off the latter’s 2013 album Old. Now the pair have returned on the second cut to be released from Rustie’s forthcoming Green Language, a banger that goes by the purposely misspelled name “Attak.” Where “Raptor” — the LP’s first single — pumped trap’s tightly wound sound full of carbonated effervescence, “Attak” leans a little more heavily on the hardcore than on the happy.
Opening with a synth line that would sound at home (if a bit cheesier) on a progressive trance track, “Attak” doesn’t waste any time bringing in Danny Brown’s animated vocals. They mutate in concert with the music, which veers from light-as-a-feather cymbal taps and hand claps to harder-hitting 808 rolls and layers of detuned saw waves.
Against this neon backdrop, Brown laughs at his rivals of whom he states: “We know you be hustlin’ backwards.” It’s an aggressive bid to be sure, especially given his collaborator’s love of rave history, but no one else brings the past further forward than Rustie. “Attak” offers us a taste of this new retrofuturist sound; we’ll all be watching the throne to see what these two visionaries do next.
Green Language is out August 26 via Warp. Listen to “Attak” below: