👽🍹
Icy as hell. This is everything I’ve wanted the new age direction of trap to sound like. One of the best albums of 2023.
Favorite track: Stay FOCUSSSS [fast+reg].
markov_process
I got maybe 1 minute into the second track and immediately purchased. This is done so well. The influences are apparent to me but it sounds unique on its own as a whole. I will definitely be sharing this as worthy of standing with some of the best cloud/ambient rap I've heard.
Celestial Dregs
All the pure quality sferic has been putting out over the years seems to have been leading up to a release like this. A real landmark for the label. Absolutely essential listening for 2023.
Favorite track: GOD THRILLS.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
£6.99GBP or more
Limited Edition LP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Black vinyl housed in reverse board sleeve.
Edition of 300.
Includes unlimited streaming of Yungwebster
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Sold Out
Limited Edition Clear Vinyl 7"
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Lathe-cut, clear vinyl 7".
Housed in PVC sleeve with silver foil sticker.
Holds the bonus track 'she know the best [reg + slowed]'.
Edition of 50. **one per customer**
Exclusive to Bandcamp & Boomkat.
Includes unlimited streaming of Yungwebster
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
An astonishing debut album of ambient rap that stretches saturated 808 kicks over dissociated AutoTuned vocals and glyding, amniotic bass. Every track is rolled out in regular, fast, and slurred versions, slanted and enchanted to enhance a sense of sensual, blunted delirium that comes highly recommended if yr into Future, Young Thug, Lee Gamble’s new one, Lil B, Iceboy Violet, DJ Screw.
It was only a matter of time before rap and ambient merged into a full syrup, something that’s been on the cards since Lil B appeared in 2010 on DIY label Weird Forest (home to Emeralds, Hair Police and Yellow Swans) with a truly eccentric braindump of stream-of-consciousness raps laced over totally anomalous ambient pads. Iceboy Violet took it further with 'Drown To Float' in 2020, granulating the edges of tracks from Lil Durk, Thugger and Gunna, and now Yungwebster propels the sound further into the blissed abyss, and in the process provides the Sferic label with its most essential release since Space Afrika’s ‘Somewhere Decent To Live’ album in 2018.
Yungwebster’s debut sweeps up tracks recorded over the last couple of years, taking the signature crawl of Southern rap that guided cloud rap's first steps (look up Viper and thank us later), and dissolving it with Ambient froth, lean-hued ATL melancholy and YouTube/TikTok micro-clique self-expression. Yungwebster is here joined by Cali producers astarii, Tavo and 6rantt, Rxmer from the Netherlands, Alabama's Sasmochi, Chicago's Dielauryn, Smooks, Cominalone, Star, local rappers Agxny and Tnotsobad, and NY producers Kacie Free and Sonofadm, all of whom contribute to the album's waved atmosphere. Each track is deployed at diff speeds, often melting into a slowed-down redux, giving a nod to DJ Screw and acknowledging the Houston original's overwhelming influence on contemporary ambient-experimental styles. He speeds things up on 'Stay FOCUSSSS', paying attention to Florida's quicker pulse, heard in music from artists like Ski Mask the Slump God and Smokepurpp, before he fades into a regular-speed coda.
Through each track, Webster works like a musicologist, presenting a wide-angled view of rap that's both nostalgic and forward facing. When he references Future's most inward material (think the soul-piercing 'Monster' finale 'Codeine Crazy'), he inevitably juxtaposes those feels with euphoric risers and psychedelic pads. On 'pull it to the side' he raps over asymmetrically Eno-esque waves and delicate, skeletal 808 Mafia-inspired rhythms. Even the commanding power of Imogen Heap (not only was she sampled on Lil B and Clams Casino's 'I'm God', but Lil B's The Pack bandmate Young L made an entire album from her voice in 2011 with 'As I Float') is referenced on the record's closer 'Coraline'. Circled by ethereal chorals, Yungwebster sings to the heavens, leaving trilling hi-hats to whirr into the clouds.
Real mesmerising gear, a proper AOTY contender.
(Boomkat)
credits
released July 27, 2023
Additional prod. from astarii • smooks • kaciefree • sasmochi • Tavo • Rxmer • dielauryn • star • comeinalone
Mastered by Isaacrohr & tnotsobad. Cut by LUPO.
Photography by Ruth Gaëlle Genéus.
Design by Will Boyd.
