You may know Jonah Lawless (Starclad) from his frequent live streams on sound design and mixing on Twitch. He was yet another founding member of the now inactive group Mangled Music Collective, which really paved the way for Triplicate Records. His previous moniker OhLookItsBubbaJ focused more on a neuro/glitch style, and with the name change we see a shift in style as well. His debut as Starclad is a brief yet powerful journey into the world of lo-fi instrumental hip hop.

~Michael Southard - Triplicate Records

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During the end of of 2019 I was approached by my friend Suncastle about if I wanted to release anything on Triplicate. At the time I was writing some LoFi stuff, as well as practicing singing. So I decided to write a small EP to release. A lot of what I started writing was what I myself enjoy listening too, and wanted to explore putting together something enjoyable for people to listen to.

~Jonah Lawless (Starclad)

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Oh look, it's Bubba J. Or at least he was. Jonah Lawless, the electric Briton has a new moniker: Starclad. Aliases in electronic music serve a greater purpose than making you sound cool, I mean his birth name is fairly badass so it's not like it needed hiding, (see also Venetian Snares / Aaron Funk). In particular, when we change our stage name, it more often than not denotes a dramatic change in the way we approach songcrafting. That or because Hansome Dick Manitoba has decided to sue you, (see Caribou). And the change could not be more stark, truly, Lawless has reinvented himself on this short but most definitely sweet offering. You're cordially invited to dive in and hear this reinvention for yourself. It's called 'Slow Motion Rain', presumably because at several points you can hear rain... in slow motion.

You may note the brevity of the EP and assume there isn't much to dissect, well, your foolishness is forgiven. It's not the size it's how many fire beats you cram into it, and 'Slow Motion Rain' isn't short of those. The first of these delightful little slices of sweet Aural pie is served up in the form of a brain-meltingly gorgeous piano ditty by the name of 'Analytical', in which the tone is well and truly established, and cemented on the following track, the more stop-start 'Summer is Overrated' (with you there, man). Both of these early beats meld the artists former eccentric time skips and clever glitchy contour-fuckery with his newfound hip-hop sensibilities. Imagine J Dilla, with a greater emphasis on melody and less reliance on sampling. In fact no, don't do that, just get the EP and find out for yourself, (after you've read this review of course..)

Next we come to the slick centrepiece, 'All of this Rain', featuring a stellar yet brittle vocal refrain in the vein of the aforementioned Caribou (Swim-era), which bleeds nicely into the queasy and warbling 'Voyage'. Here the drums seem to shed their Lo-Fi aesthetic and take on a more studio-quality sheen, aided in part by the stellar production work of in house audio guru Michael Southard. That's not to say said aesthetic takes a back seat, far from it in fact. The expertly layered crackle never strays far, and synth stabs sound like they were harvested by an old tape recorder in an alley in downtown NY, (these are positive things and add massively to the sound Starclad has purposely cultivated if it wasn't clear). Elsewhere oddball low-octave woofing samples start up mid-tune and propel the piece to another level.

Onto the penultimate 'Pinto', a stuttering breeze of a tune which incorporates several melodic elements of the preceding tracks with an irresistibly head-bopping beat. If you've been paying attention to Lawless' previous work, you'll be familiar with his masterful approach to percussion, but the restraint he's now applying in this new lo-fi hip hop phase of his career has really paid off, not just on this track, but on the whole EP. Quirky shuffling percussion propels the final cut, the sleazy 'Splatt' sounds as though Lawless drank a quart of Bourbon and passed out in a Vegas hotel room, woke up to find himself with a laptop on his lap and tried to convey the fading events of the previous night into song, again, this is a good thing.

All in all, Slow Motion Rain offers a through insight into Lawless' musical transformation. The swish beats and whooshing synthesized heights of the 'Bubba J' days were the pupal phase, offering thrills and high octane delights unending, but the eagerness to find his niche remained apparent. Here, the artist has conjured a string of downright delightful musical passages. Joy itself takes centre stage, mining happiness from the gloom, Lawless just needed a little time to find himself. As Hawthorne once wrote: 'Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you'. Whatever. The EP's good, REALLY good. Get it. Bubba J is dead, long live Starclad!

~George Evans - Triplicate Records

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