Matt Brevner: Eclectricity

Matt Brevner is a half-Trinidadian, half-Japanese hip-hop artist from the west coast of Canada, but his newly released album Eclectricity, which, according to his Facebook page, will be the last album under his name, sees him wanting to take over the world. The comic book world, in particular. From references to Comic-Con on “Crashed” to various bad guys from X-Men and The Fantastic Four in “Supervillainmusic”, Brevner practically is an artist that you want to yell “Shazam!” to. The music is fluid, though it does get a little soft about mid-way through the record, and the rapping is stellar. And Brevner enters the touch-point of Kendrick Lamar in that the former talks about his faith on record (just like Lamar) and very honestly, even if it is role-playing, that he has sinned in the past: “I said things I didn’t mean / And my anger got the best of me / And now my head is running in circles / It hurts to breathe.” Brevner clearly has strong beliefs (“I’m a man of God / I don’t come from a chimp”) and the song “Jitters” even opens with a sample of an evangelistic preacher. That makes Electricity something to deeply feel with all of your soul.

The nearly nine-minute long “Potential” speaks to Brevner’s upbringing against a piano riff: “Separated from my mother as a fucking child / Pre-teen in the streets running fucking wild / Bad decisions, never proud about that / Man, ’cause my dad didn’t fucking care I knew how to rap.” It’s stark and brutal as a song, and is a definite highlight. Eclectricity works both a narrative of one young man’s life, and something to think about deeply and profoundly in relation to your own experiences. At times, Brevner sounds downright exhausted: “Sick of all the bullshit / Tired of all the struggle / Life’s full of debate and rebuttal.” However, by the end of the disc, Brevner is in a celebratory mood: the uptempo, big beat swing of “Swing Hop”, which sort of sounds a bit like the Cure’s “Close to Me”, has a line that goes, “You can text me, but I’m too happy / To pick up the phone now, because life is golden.”

The album moves from the gritty to the outright positive, which deftly speaks of Brevner’s ability to weave a cohesive story with this album. And even though this was reportedly recorded about five years ago (according to Brevner’s Facebook posts), and is just being released now, it does sound remarkably contemporary and not dated in one wit. The course of the LP curves, as noted earlier, from gang-banging beats, to slow and sultry songs, then back to stuff that you can dance to. It’s a reverse bell curve, musically. While the slowness of the mid-section does grind the record to a halt, and you could carp that the sequencing of the disc could be fluffed up to prevent Eclectricity from being less thrilling in its centre, this is still a very gripping listen.

However, the album might offer probably unintentional disrespect to the memory of late actor Robin Williams in “Supervillainmusic”, which may leave some listeners (including me) a tad uncomfortable or cold. After countless replays of this bit (and the publicist couldn’t confirm the lyrics), it sounds like Brevner is rapping: “Full Metal Jacket / Good Morning, Vietnam / Robbie Williams / ‘Till I cask it”. Now, that last line could sound like and very well be “casket”, which is unnerving in and of itself, but, of course, a cask is urban slang for wine served in a foil bag with a tap. Given that Williams talked about alcohol abuse in his life when he was alive, it’s a little disconcerting to hear. Personally, after Williams’ death, as an artist, I would have reworked that so there wouldn’t be the opportunity for misinterpretation, especially since Brevner posted to Facebook on the day that Williams died (this was cached, and not in his current feed), “RIP Robin Williams. Love that guy.” (Unless, of course, this is all moot and Brevner is rapping about the English pop star, though I doubt it.)

Still, if you can get past that, Eclectricity is actually a very strong rap album, with a density and weight to it. Brevner doesn’t necessarily glorify living life in a particular way, and his devotion to faith is a blessing (no pun intended). This album – which, only if you download it from the URBNET Bandcamp page, comes with Brevner’s The Bushido Project mixtape as a bonus, bringing the length of the record from 10 track up to 24 songs that collectively run about an hour and a half – shows that Canadian hip-hop is certainly eye-opening and something to take seriously. Brevner is a masterful example of the bounty that our home and native land has to offer.

Eclectricity is an illustration of just where this artist is coming from, and perhaps where he’s going, so it definitely whets the appetite to hear more from this talented rapper. This disc leads you to wonder, if he was this strong five years ago or so, what is he capable of now? It’ll be interesting to see what kind of path Brevner charts from here, but, for now, Eclectricity is certainly both eclectic and electric, and leaves the listener catching his or her breath for the power and intensity of his rhymes. Definitely, Matt Brevner is one to watch, no matter what his name may be in the future. Eclectricity is, simply put, captivating.