The L.A. rapper teams with producer ewonee for a lean and low-stakes album, but its strength is in its brevity.
Yungmorpheus has been kicking around Los Angeles for a few years now and has come to exemplify the sound of the eccentrics that reside in the city’s subterranean bomb shelters—the sound of Madlib, of Earl Sweatshirt. The blissful, dimly lit Thumbing Thru Foliage is already Morpheus’ second album of the year after the very fine States of Precarity. But unlike previous Morph albums, Thumbing Thru Foliage is entirely produced by ewonee, a native of Mount Vernon and disciple of DJ Premier and DJ Ron G, who makes chilly beat tapes and posts them to Bandcamp. Together, the pair have created an elemental rap record: lots of casual rhymes—no hooks—over shards of old-soul vinyl. At less than half an hour, Thumbing Thru Foliage is lean and low-stakes, but its strength is in its brevity.
ewonee finds grubby samples with a distinct character and hardly dresses them up to create the beats. On “The Rat Race” and “Sovereignty,” Morph raps over vocal loops that sound like they’re being played through an inch of dust. There’s the one-two punch of “Middle Passage,” a slick boom-bap jam, and “Harbour Blvd” which harnesses something that sounds like retro sci-fi to form a DOOM-style beat. “Ride Dirty” features a gritty funk bassline and twangy 1970s-style guitars. It’s easy to imagine most producers discarding the neat drum fills of the track, but ewonee harnesses the inventive percussion to really put the button on Morpheus’ rhymes.
Yungmorpheus isn’t what you’d call a powerhouse rapper; his permanently deflated voice hangs in the air like a cloud of smoke. Morph is the guy still sitting in the corner at the end of the party with the laid-back demeanor, a little more weed-resistant than most, getting chatty. His name, in fact, is said to have been inspired by two things: an old set of circular sunglasses similar to the eyewear sported by The Matrix character, and because at every function “he’s smoked out, talking mad shit.” In true stream-of-consciousness style, Morph will drop a bar about privilege and oppression one second and before completing the thought admit he’s sold fake molly. On “Table of One,” he raps about eating smoked fish, reveals a penchant for Bay Area legend Mac Mall, and muses on the pleasure violent dreams give him. Enlightened moments emerge through a conversational haze so quickly you might miss them.
There is some gentle gesturing to L.A. rap history. On “Johnnie Cochran,” Morph sets his voice to a deeper, more menacing style that resembles MC Eiht. It’s also the closing track and ends somewhat abruptly, meaning the album kind of falls off a cliff. But the point here isn’t some filmic arc—it’s to put a bunch of entertaining raps over head-noddin’ beats and move on quickly. There’s a thin line between off-the-cuff prolificness and shoddy workmanship. Yungmorpheus and ewonee never crash into the latter.
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