Review Summary: The shape of the shape of the shape of the shape
Chaos merchant JPEGMAFIA toys with the tipping point of poor taste like it’s his job (I mean, isn’t it?). Rock rap that sidesteps corny (just)? Janky sample combos that, instead, compliment and coalesce? Blending industrial + jazz + punk + your mom without the hodgepodge distracting from legitimately excellent songcraft beneath?
I Lay Down My Life For You is all of these things - a big ol’ verbose splurge of everything and anything - yet far more coherent than the shitpost optics suggest it ought be. Again, it’s all in the songcraft, in the way “don’t rely on other men“ (for example) distorts time and space to get from A to B: the dirty fuzz and staccato angularity of its first half morphing into colour and euphoria, busting out a crescendo of strings and soul and the rest of it. It’s such an unobvious progression, yet never feels like a
gotcha. No cheap tricks are employed, just a legitimate build and release marvel, equal parts baffling and brilliant.
Similar quicksilver hand-slights are the game-name throughout LP7 (7?!), spearheaded by the hyperbop “SIN MIEDO” - exchanging distorted electricity for rainbow funk boogies at the drop of a hat - and captivating slowburn “Exmilitary” - soul collapsing into riffage rebuilt into soul disappearing into the ethereal. You realize, eventually, that the whole record plays out in the same way. That narrative arc is mirrored across the runtime, dark becoming light, side-A’s sharp edges + shadow + BASS giving way to a genuinely gorgeous 4-track closing run. Each tune therein - from the magic of “either on or off the drugs” and its “Turn on the Lights” hook (circa 1973) to the frankly insane repurposing of Janet Jackson’s “Funny How Time Flies” - splices so many reference points, but deftly and with patience, spiraling upwards with eerie tendrils of ghostly bliss. String-twangs and key-plonks snuggle up with some of the prettiest vocal snippets I’ve heard all year, showcasing a subtlety and restraint I’ve not come to expect from JPEG, whatever era we’re talking, Veteran or Hoes, Cornballs or Ballcorns. The shitpost has evolved beyond, the fuckery now just the means —
— which is why I think the hype train is backwards.
I Lay Down My Life For You isn’t brilliant for the ways in which it’s bonkers, but brilliant for the ways in which it’s not. This is no hyperactive pile-up of disjointed ideas, no scrapbook of jank, but (rather) a weighty and well-realized WOOF of a statement, one that retains the eclecticism, sense of humor and sample/prod-wizardry that put Peggy on the map, but honing that shit to a point. That’s not to suggest newfound maturity or cordiality - which a
genius.com skim will quickly dispel - but, simply, to celebrate method and madness aligning. It's Peggy's process at a peak - the beat switching bar building atmos crafting for ever and ever - such that the shape of the shape of the shape of anything to come could be his. At least it feels that way. A terrifying prospect, really.
