The excitement after hearing the progressive Ruff Draft EP and beautiful ‘Floating‘ left a feeling of unexpected anticipation for The Awakening, Stacy Epps first full length album.

With ‘Floating’ a central track of which the rest seem to be built around, the Atlanta based vocalist/rapper pushes the boundaries of rare groove, mixing a simple dreamy boom-bap beat with a contrasting seductive harmony and insightful lyrics. In fact her ability to seem at ease when singing or rapping, a gift she calls ‘Ultimate Divine Communication’, makes it difficult to choose a preference

With this release think experimental hip-hop sitting on a distant star and dipping it’s toes in electro funk and soul within one big dream and your aurally close. A haze of thoughts and feelings lost in time between sleeping and awakening, for the most part the album is superb in arousing such feelings.

Tracks like ‘Who Knows’, and ‘Mothership’ showcase her melodic vocal reaches, gelling synthetic touches, pensive samples and numerous instrumental sounds. While ‘The Awakening’ and ‘Episode 1’ drive a futuristic funk beat fans of Dam Funk are sure to yam up. The finale ‘00:00’ is also a gracious beauty, one I desperately need to program into my alarm clock.

‘Heaven’ and ‘Cosmic Dust’ on the other hand, although pretty bumping, do fall short from fitting with the program. But her risk in working with varied producers, one that would make the best breakfast club, does give the release a constant dynamic and unpredictable unity. Beats from Apex (Floatin and most of album), Flying Lotus, Everett James and Amdex are but a few that demonstrate Stacy’s versatility to sound good.

words Ali Raymond
Stacy Epps Myspace