by David Wilikofsky
Bloodz Boi, Claire Rousay and More Eaze have each been responsible for some of the most exciting music of 2022. The gauzy beats and moody vocals of Bloodz Boi’s debut album, 365, came together to create the most focused set of music of the Beijing rapper’s career, while Rousay and More Eaze’s Never Stop Texting Me contorted pop tropes into futuristic new shapes. On paper the trio don’t immediately seem like natural collaborators, but all three are musicians whose sense of artistic adventurousness is ingrained in their deep back catalogs. It’s this shared value that animates a crying poem, an album that bears the marks of each contributor yet adds up to something all its own.
The starting place for each of the six songs on a crying poem were their lyrics; each track is based on a poem by Bloodz Boi, who then worked with Rousay and More Eaze to build orchestration around his words. The results split the difference between the ebullient pop of Never Stop Texting Me and the “ambient emo” of prior collaborations like an afternoon whine, productions that gently unfurl and wrap themselves around the words. At first they sound simple, centered around strummed guitar melodies and wobbly synths, but a deeper listen reveals much more beneath the surface: whispered robotic harmonies, creaking floorboards, incidental noise, orchestral flourishes. Though each one clocks in under three minutes, you could easily spend hours dissecting these carefully rendered sonic worlds.
Throughout the album we hear the marks of each artist, whether it’s the distinctive distorted vocals of More Eaze, the sounds of the everyday from Rousay or Bloodz Boi’s gently crooned vocals. We also hear them stretching themselves in new directions; “The Lighter” may be the closest we’ve seen Rousay and More Eaze get to a cloud rap beat (albeit one that’s extremely off kilter), while “Jailbird” pairs Bloodz Boi with one of the most amorphous productions he’s ever tackled. Still other moments feel like a natural meeting of the minds, such as the chorus of interlocking robotic voices that drive “Sad Gondola” to its end. As a fan of each artist’s individual catalog, it’s this dialog that animates the album for me. It’s the sound of some of the most interesting artists of today pushing each other to even greater heights.