ECID

ECID

Ecid's MySpace page is the first thing that comes up when you Google his name, but the third entry might as well be about his music, too—it's a site devoted to an engineering research project titled "Embracing Complexity in Design." In a local rap scene largely attuned to everyman personae, battle-rap refinement, and indie-punk crossover, Ecid's one of the few Twin Cities MCs to go as far as the almost confrontationally abrasive coastal underground rap mainstays on Anticon and Definitive Jux.

But Ecid's design isn't too complex to obscure the meaning of his lyrics, the frustration and disillusionment of which cut closer than a more complacent listener might be comfortable with. "If hip hop was really dead there'd be nobody complaining about it," he cracks derisively in "Crook Cologne." That combination of halfway-idealism and pragmatic cynicism carries over into his disappointment with an unattainable Hollywood-style future in "Re-Seeding Skyline" ("I think I can speak for every single one of us/When I say we've waited long enough for hovering BMWs"), the pitfalls of theology, science, and identity politics in "What Are You Gonna Be for Halloween?" (the chorus: "Okay, I get it/Let's pretend to be somebody else"), and his own shaky psyche in "Moodswing Posterchild".

Production-wise, Economy Size goDD Costume is all minor-key bass, claustrophobic drums, and zombie-film atmospherics, with Ecid's breathlessly manic voice—ranging from a low, seething snarl to an Eminem harangue minus the clownishness—providing the narrative. It's an album worth listening to mostly during those times when you're fucked-up and anxious, and wondering if there's anyone else on that same wavelength.