At the beginning of Standing on the Corner II, a murky prayer arises through a break in the noise. Before the twisted funeral procession and organ crashes of “Will it ever be the same?” kick into gear, a distorted voice muses about being cast away from home and forsaken to roam the earth. The mangled vocals of founder and songwriter Gio Escobar take over, narrating from a theological crossroads: “And at the very time I thought I was lost/My dungeon shook/Burning/At the foot of a bright light that appeared as it all fell down around me,” he booms from the ether. Like on 2017’s Red Burns, he is offering dispatches from a crumbling society where Black and Brown folks are left to pick up the pieces. “Will it ever be the same?” morphs into a monologue filled with different versions of the same probing question, interrupted by wailing guitar riffs, shotgun blasts, air raid sirens, and what feels like an endless stream of samples ad-libbing in the negative space.
Since their 2016 debut, Standing on the Corner’s distorted mix of jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk, and spoken word has been delivered by an evolving web of members and collaborators in New York, with Escobar always at the helm. The quality of their output has rarely wavered, but it’s lately been confined to the rare single release (like 2020’s melancholic “Angel,” or 2025’s Funkadelic-tinged “Baby”), art installations rooted in Black and Brown revolutionary tradition, and production credits for Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE. II is a heat check where Standing on the Corner option for less accessibility in favor of greater creative entropy. Where the previous full-length efforts were more uniformly portioned and focused, here, the group oscillates between longform compositions and eclectic spurts of inspiration, sometimes losing steam along the way. However the winding structure lends itself to their best impulses, following hip-hop production and sampling down the memory holes of the group’s creative minds, helping II find enough dazzling moments to help all the chaos settle into place.
Previously only available on DVD and vinyl, the newly shared online version is split into two roughly 30-minute continuous streams, “Side X” and “Side Y.” In this form, there’s enough space for Escobar and the rest of the Standing on the Corner instrumental ensemble to explore sounds from every corner of the city’s landscape. Take “Man may not last,” where Escobar blurts out Rakim’s phrase “Make ‘em clap to this” before gun blasts intrude upon his nihilistic sermon, which then gives way to a groovy garage breakdown and dreamy drawn-out syllables on “The word.” Elsewhere, a “Go DeMarcus!” ad-lib and “Thriller” laughs appear out of thin air. Like expert collagists, they move with economy through samples and composition styles, dropping a mutated surf-rock cut introduced by DJ Lazy K out of nowhere (“Roll over beethoven”). “Gimme my gun” oscillates between gospel keys and blistering guitar solos, while the simultaneously glitchy and sultry nature of “Mr. Postman” is situated next to a Brandy flip, assembling a fractured image of the world that made them.
Despite never being starved for ideas, II is sometimes too daunting to keep up the momentum for the entire 64-minute runtime. There are moments when their exhilarating abrasiveness immediately cedes to woozy premonitions; a thrilling verse over a serene piano loop in “500,000, R.I.P.” is sequenced next to the hazy shoegaze ballad “Secrets,” which present an energy gap that’s too much to bridge. But combing through the flood of information reveals the depth and beauty at the core of Standing on the Corner’s allure. Consider how the stream of cameos—Danny Brown, Styles P, and poet Sonia Sanchez (whose “Poem at 30” is the emotional crux of “Sonia”)—help reveal the group’s wide-ranging influences. Or how themes of societal decay rub up against an urge to remain hopeful and forge connection (“My fears have passed/That this will never be right,” a love-stricken voice sings on “The Night has arrived”). And beneath the blown out brass horns, laser effects, and hyper-distorted vocals of the stunning “Baby, oh baby!,” there lies a tender lowrider jam: “How long can you do/Without my loving when I’m down,” Escobar croons, granting you a peek into his soul amid the desolation. Even with the continual shifts in the collective’s make-up and the volatility of the world surrounding them, the pieces of the puzzle somehow feel complete.
