Spaceman - The Cosmic Island EP

Spaceman
The Cosmic Island EP
2015
Spaceman - The Cosmic Island EP

The Cosmic Island EP opens with a JFK speech over a nice trippy beat a la Public Service Broadcasting. However this album does not only use period audio like they do as the very next track dips into the hip hop world. Here is the thing about this record: the beats are ethereal and have moments of brilliance, the rapping on the other hand is mediocre at best. If the beats were allowed to just run out and maybe take the electronic umbrella and run with it there would really be something here, but the vocals and the rhymes take you right out of it. The space theme is used in such a cavalier fashion ("I got them space bars/you feeling me honey") that it is almost laughable. It is an idea that has one foot grounded and the other in the skies and that just does not bode well for the music. Listening you find yourself so torn because the production, though it could use a bit of polish, is done well but once the rapping starts and things really take a turn.

To create a set of lyrics that would go well with this kind of music you would really have to be extremely talented and be willing to take the concept on full force. You can't sing about love on every track and just sprinkle in the occasional space reference and expect that to be enough. There is a lack of commitment lyrically that doesn't let you go on the journey that Spaceman (Jacob Dinneen) is trying to take you on. The bones of this record however are really well done so you know that their is some real potential here. The music is a bit better when Dinneen actually sings rather than raps, but it still is not enough to save this record. Come for the beats, tolerate the vocals.

4.4 out of 10