Standing on the Corner – II

Emerging in the middle of the last decade, Standing on the Corner were central to the burst of creativity emanating from Brooklyn that brought, amongst others, MIKE to the world and rejuvenated Earl Sweatshirt, a movement that seemed intent on collaging the whole history of Black American music into a new, pulsing, genreless blur. They exemplified it better than anyone, their whole existence a kind of blur, shifting members and sounds, disappearing for long stretches only to quietly reappear, drop another slice of brilliance and then dip again, emerging when we needed them most.

Things are a touch more structured on II than they have been in the past, songs more fleshed out than on their masterpiece mixtape Red Burns, where songs drifted through like thoughts, disappearing as quickly as they’d emerged. They lose something of the momentum of that record here, but there’s still the same restlessness as before, the same desire to never sit still, and it works to brilliant effect, particularly on swaggering single Gimme my gun. Man may not last, too, overpowers its clunky verses with an atmosphere of woozy chaos, sounding like a Quasimoto record with shell shock. It makes for a record that still carries the best of the group; urgent, soulful and raging.

Listen to: Gimme my gun, Man may not last, Baby, oh baby!