Milo will return with his next solo LP on his label Ruby Yacht three weeks from today. It’s called budding ornithologists are weary of tired analogies. If that album name isn’t enough of an indication, then let me tell you that Milo (Rory Ferreira) writes some of the most esoteric, eloquent rap out there right now. Sometimes he performs as Scallops Hotel — the moniker under which he released the excellent and hard-hitting album Sovereign Nose Of (Y)our Arrogant Face last January. Other times, he’s just Milo. Today his forthcoming album’s lead single “Stet” comes to us accompanied by some staticky lo-fi visuals.

On the topic of budding ornithologists are weary of tired analogies, Milo stated:

This album doesn’t have an arc or a point or a moral to preach. It’s a contemporary rhythm and poetry album made by someone who loves the form and enjoys creating what they want to hear in the world. All of my songs become spells. I go out into the world, corralling small groups together and we yell and cry and howl and laugh around these words, some being gorgeous lies that come true.

In the Spencer Garland-directed video, a figure wanders around the city, tagging graffitied walls while sporting a brown paper bag a la 2014-era Shia LaBeouf. Milo twists and digs into turns of phrases with dizzying momentum, making it look effortless to rhyme “bellowing animus” with “fellows magnanimous” as a sparse jazzy piano beat bubbles up beneath. Sometimes, things come to a complete halt, like when Milo suddenly repeats, “No fables, alms,” or spits, “Mutual exclusivity is fucking with me,” with sporadic venom.

“Stet” opens with a shot of the back of a faded, navy blue jacket that reads, “Poetry is not a luxury.” It’s an aphorism that swiftly invites you into Milo’s world, one where radical ideologies and conceptual poetry come together — not via the caginess of a classroom or the pretension of intelligentsia but through atmospheric, inward-looking rap.

Watch, listen, and check out the tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “mythbuilding exercise no.9″
02 “tiptoe”
03 “nominy”
04 “pure scientific intelligence (quantum)”
05 “failing the stress test (iguessillbeheadingthen)”
06 “mid answer trying to remember what the question is”
07 “lowcoup”
08 “aubergine cloak”
09 “galahad in goosedown (fiat iustitia et pereat mundus)”
10 “deposition regarding the green horse for rap”
11 “romulan ale”
12 “thinking while eating a handful of almonds”
13 “stet”
14 “the esteemed saboteur reggie baylor hosts an evening at the scallops hotel”
15 “sanssouci palace (4 years later)”

budding ornithologists are weary of tired analogies is out 9/21 on Ruby Yacht.

CREDIT: Alexander Kollman