GoKawiilis the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths.
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“Breakups are… tough.”
It’s the opening lines of an interlude towards the end of DOOMED! Called “It Happens in Every Universe.” It’s also basically the thesis of the entire record. It’s no grand revelation, but it’s a well-trodden subject that Open Mike Eagle manages to mine for artistic gold.
Eagle’s subject matter is usually personal, and his productions tinged with nostalgia. But DOOMED! is his most intimate album yet. A lot of that is due to the production from Kenny Segal. The two have traveled in the same orbit and worked together before, but this is the first full-length album release from the two.
These are some of Segal’s most commanding beats since Maps, his 2023 record with Billy Woods. There’s still warbly piano samples, strings, detuned sax melodies, and psychedelic synths, but everything feels more grounded and meaders less. Opener “Out to Lunch” even has fully on-the-grid hi-hats that tick robotically.
That gives way to “Streets of Rage: Public Arguments Edition,” which grooves along with a loose clap, jazzy piano, and confident bassline that recalls the work of Madlib. Over this lowkey funk, Eagle spins an oblique tale of fighting with a significant other. “She cut deep with short barbs, but twist me up with a lil whisper.”
It turns out that Segal and Eagle are a perfect pair. The rapper’s melodrama and eye for microscopic details play off the producer’s woozy and forlorn beats that are occasionally punctuated by a sense of foreboding. On the Billy Woods-featuring “She Swear I’m Colorblind,” Eagle intones on the chorus:
Some reason, shit got twisted, Told me it was all my fault, she said “Pay attention when I talk.”
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