Before Evilgiane ever made music, he was a skater. It’s how the producer’s New York-based collective Surf Gang got started: linking up under the Manhattan Bridge and sharing trick videos set to vaporwave. Since 2018, the crew has fractured and morphed, and their profile soared when Giane scored beat placements for Earl Sweatshirt and Kendrick Lamar that represented both rappers’ best releases of last year. But on his new mixtape, #HEAVENSGATE VOL. 1, he still flourishes within a posse, inviting hyper-regional talent to slide over a collection of exquisitely fine-tuned beats that position him as a superproducer in the making.
Giane is used to staying focused with plenty of producers in the studio. Surf Gang’s 2021 release SGV1 packed a more robust iteration of the group onto a tape bursting with ideas while remaining loyal to a discernible vision—pattering polyrhythms held down by 808s so sleek they hit like a high diver entering the water, no splash. But he hasn’t yet tested himself on this scale, recalibrating his signature technique to a features roster the size of a summer camp soccer team. It’s a lofty task and he mostly nails it.
None of the vocalists here have the name recognition of a Kendrick or an Earl, so Giane’s delicate touch is a vote of confidence. When it’s Massachusetts singer-songwriter Lucy on the track, clipped synth flares and a racing hi-hat match his chatty delivery. Atlanta’s K$upreme tests Young Thug-style ad-libs over what must be a lost Twilight Zone theme on “Lil Wayne”; Harto Falión’s dreamy laments on “Ugly Pretty” float over synth melodies that could’ve come out on Leaving Records. “Informants” casts Georgia shape-shifter and character aficionado Slimesito in a rainy nighttime neo-noir via trilling drill snares and an undulating synth like a string section bowing a mile underwater.
Sometimes, Giane makes these brief, poised compositions out of extremely raw material. When Atlanta’s Bear1Boss—recognizable, in some circles, as the young man who shouted out God for booking him in the same jail as Playboi Carti in a viral clip—takes the mic on “IDK Nun,” it’s not a standout verse. But Giane’s gossamer net of chimes catches him every time he falters, draping around Bear’s yelps and whispers and bringing to mind the exquisite open space that closes another early Giane production highlight, Babyxsosa’s “Who You Love.” He doesn’t steamroll Bear’s point of view, but he doesn’t leave him out to dry among more experienced stylists either. As lovely as they get, Giane beats make good armor too.
Giane isn’t actually the traveling pants of producers, and he’s occasionally out of step. The 03 Greedo-featuring “Sip Sip” has some appealingly drippy synths but it’s unmemorable overall. “40” with xaviersobased and Nettspend deserves credit for onboarding some older heads to New York’s newest underground heroes, but the beat could’ve played more on Xav’s own out-there party style. And Rochester’s Rx Papi, perhaps the least suited to Giane’s vibe despite the great thing he’s got going with similarly nimble producer Gud, overwhelms the stormy “Pap Shiesty” instrumental with his fierce bark.
Giane needs an artist who can bounce off his taut and sharply referenced tracks, like Milwaukee-indebted rapper Durkalini on album closer “Glamorous.” A synth that sounds like a cartoon duck discussing its day draws out a loop over spacious 808 claps and bass on the Woesum-assisted beat. Durkalini’s honeyed one-liners lead into the most soulful interpolation of Fergie’s “Glamorous”—and sure, that bar is low. But Durkalini finds understated ecstasy in his falsetto “flossy,” a from-the-chest moment that feels as casual as karaoke (and revisits Giane’s impish habit of proudly sample-snitching in track titles). This is exactly the juice that had Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem clowning their way around Dodger Stadium into a Grammy nomination. Giane follows his instincts to music that pulses with untapped kinetic energy, always teetering at the lip of the bowl.
