Open Mike Eagle

Open Mike Eagle found comedy in contemporary American horrors on albums like 2014’s Dark Comedy and catharsis in exposing his past on 2020’s Anime, Trauma, and Divorce. Now, the incisive, hilarious, and idiosyncratic purveyor of art rap praised by The New York Times, Pitchfork, and The New Yorker manipulates time like Dr. Strange on his new album, Component System with the Auto Reverse. Eagle’s eighth solo LP, CSWTAR is grounded in our dystopian present but structured with the magical randomness of cassette mixtapes he made recording college rap radio shows in the late ’90s. It was an era of supreme braggadocio and countless lyrical styles, the lines between boasts offering insight into Black American neighborhoods. Eagle made CSWTAR in this spirit. Unstuck in time, he spits his sharpest stream-of-consciousness darts while watching his younger self bop to the music that informed them. No two songs traverse the same ground, but Eagle splices in actual commercials and radio interviews from his old mixtapes to connect the dots, his keen sociopolitical analysis and obscure pop culture allusions serving as temporal poles. In the same breath, he airs grievances about current police corruption and alludes to long-retired Chicago Bulls players. Every anachronism provides a new perspective on today. Keeping with the purposeful surprise and structure, CSWTAR is scored by crashing doom-filled hard rock flips from Madlib, Diamond D’s thumping jazz-inflected boom-bap, twisted cartoon-sampled suites via Quelle Chris, and more progressive production. Eagle turns these disparate sounds into a cohesive whole, equally at home rhyming on minimalist electronic soundscapes and parodying an animated stereo store proprietor over thundering drums and grinding guitar. A master of his vocal range, he effortlessly moves in and out of conversational and intricate technical delivery, inflecting with abandon and assurance before pivoting to half-sung hooks. There are more time-bending spells in Eagle’s grimoire, but he’s never shown listeners so many so effectively. Though Eagle has worked in podcasts, comedy, and TV, he is first a member of the loosely-affiliated independent rap scene that includes the rappers featured on CSWTAR: Armand Hammer, R.A.P Ferreira, Aesop Rock, Serengeti, Diamond D, Video Dave, and Still Rift. Part solo album and spiritual mixtape, part green room cipher, and part showcase for Eagle’s Auto Reverse Records, CSWTAR recontextualizes his place among his peers. With every original metaphor and stylistic flourish, he asserts his place in the pantheon of great rappers from his hometown of Chicago (“79th and Stony Island”) and among the avant-garde heavyweights in his adopted home of Los Angeles (“Crenshaw and Homeland”). CSWTAR is also a response to the rest of Eagle’s catalog. He forsakes much of the whimsy and comedy of many previous albums for unflinching and unironic directness. A testament to the determination necessary to thrive in indie rap (“I’ll Fight You”) plays before his touching tribute to the late MF DOOM (“For DOOM”). He articulates the stir-crazed mania and malaise of the pandemic in “Peak Lockdown Raps,” while “I Retired Then I Changed My Mind” is a calculated analysis of career missteps and a lament for his canceled Comedy Central show, The New Negroes. As that wound closes, Eagle is recording albums like CSWTAR, producing acclaimed podcasts, and focusing on his next trick: survival.