Before today, perhaps the only thing Courting and RXK Nephew had in common were their shared status as Stereogum Artists To Watch. Today, their worlds collide, as the genre-jumping Liverpool indie band welcomes the Rochester street rap surrealist onto a new track. It's called "rollback freestyle," and, after a brief buildup, it finds Neph kicking out bars like "I'll start tweakin' like Kanye/ Might paint your hair like Dennis Rodman" over a skronking noise-rock backbeat that reminds me of Gilla Band. It's the kind of track I imagine Danny Brown hopping on, and it's giving me nostalgia for the indie-blog music landscape of the 2010s.
"rollback freestyle" is from a newly announced deluxe edition of Courting's recent album Lust For Life, Or: 'How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story.' Naturally, the deluxe is titled How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story, Or: 'Lust For Life'. Along with the Neph connect, it includes remixes, demos, live-in-studio recordings, and the recent rework "the twins (1969)." An explanation from Sean Murphy O'Neill:
Hardly just a deluxe, but an inversion - this release is an attempt to add new layers to the dual thematics of 'Lust for Life(...)', by twisting original songs into new beasts entirely, through either doubling up the processing, or stripping it back altogether. Songs written in bedrooms are now opened up and collaborative, whereas songs written on stages are re-interpreted from outside perspectives. Some songs are re-performed live, in the same studio, but with a year of touring forcing them to shift and evolve.
Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Rollback Intro"
02 "Stealth Rollback"
03 "Pause At You"
04 "Namcy"
05 "Eleven Sent (This Time)"
06 "After You"
07 "Lust For Life"
08 "Likely Place For Them To Be"
09 "rollback freestyle"
10 "the twins (1969)"
11 "pause at you (Meg Wards Wavy Remix)"
12 "namcy (Dj Streaks Remix)"
13 "eleven sent (demo)"
14 "pause @ you (live)"
15 "likely place for them to be (live)"
How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story, Or: 'Lust For Life' is out 10/24 via Lower Third.
