Back in the early 2000s, mash-up culture had a moment. The ''As Heard on Radio Soulwax'' discs were essential party soundtracks, and a quick flick through music video channels yielded endless Britney and Christina mash-ups. The novelty of matching up disparate genres was primitive but satisfying-- evidenced by nu-metal's regular pairing with bubblegum pop. One high-water mark was Danger Mouse's Jay-Z and Beatles match-making on The Grey Album. Lushlife's similar pairing of the Beach Boys and Kanye on West Sounds in 2005 was his first record. Fast-forward to the present, and Lushlife-- aka producer/MC Raj Haldar-- still seems to be investigating that contrast.
That's not to say there's anything crude about the way Halder mixes up genres on Plateau Vision, but what you do get is an Andrew Cedermark (of Underwater Peoples) guest spot on a rap record. That appearance comes on ''The Romance of the Telescope" where Cedermark is enlisted to sing the hook from the OMD song of the same name (over a sample also culled from the song). The beat hangs in air, spectral and melancholy as Halder points his telescope at South Philly, name-dropping Joy Divison, Maxi Priest, and spitting "coke rap but sprinkled with the right emotion."
Rap can often be pretty meta with references within references, often to cartoonish real life events (Killa Cam patenting his own color, Kanye's Taylor Swift-gate), and pinpointing submerged narratives is sometimes half of the fun. Halder litters his music with references too, but with the absence of an outré personality, he relies on unexpected name-drops to establish his character-- Burt Bacharach and Zola Jesus are both invoked on opener "Magnolia", for instance. These nods make this feel like a nerdy, insular record, and more than anything Halder often comes across like an enthusiastic music fan. There's a lot of heart to this record too, not least in Plateau Vision's dewy-eyed beats: from the gorgeous guitars of "Big Sur" to the drumless, music box glow of "Gymnopedie 1.2".
Halder's nasal rasp sounds good as a counterpoint to his lush, textured beats, and his vocal style harks back to the Roots' Black Thought and Nas. "Hale-Bopp Was the Bedouins" is where he shines brightest-- a dark, rumbling beat opening up just enough space as a canvas so his verses stand at the fore for the first time. He nods to the classics, invoking Nas as he posits himself as "half-Delorean, half-rap historian" while sounding more aggressive than anywhere else on Plateau Vision. Das Racist's Heems completes an already dark picture, sounding ragged and tough as he finishes the track up.
There's probably a little too much emphasis on cultural currency for Halder to ever define himself as a character on Plateau Vision. Regardless there's enough of a sweet spot in the clean, backward-leaning production and offbeat samples to allow the record to distinguish itself as more than a sum of disparate parts.
