Danny Brown: Atrocity Exhibition (2LP) [WARP]

Why you'll love it

Warp spreads the album over two LPs in printed inner sleeves. Atrocity Exhibition landed on year-end lists across the board, and Rolling Stone called it "the year's most thrilling cry for help."

This edition

• 2LP set
• Printed inner sleeves
• Lyrics included
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Naming your album after a Joy Division song and a J. G. Ballard novel sets a fairly high bar for unease. The Detroit rapper cleared it with room to spare. Atrocity Exhibition came out in September 2016 through Warp and Fool's Gold, and it sounds like nothing else in hip hop from that year: wiry post-punk guitars, warped samples, clanging drums and Brown's yelping, rubbery voice darting through all of it.

English producer Paul White built most of the album, with The Alchemist, Black Milk, Evian Christ and Petite Noir adding tracks. "Downward Spiral" sets the scene, "When It Rain" is a jittery dance-floor jolt, "Pneumonia" stomps, and "Really Doe" passes the mic to Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul and Earl Sweatshirt for one of the decade's great posse cuts. "Ain't It Funny" turned up as a single after the album, with its honking horns and frantic rhythm, and Kelela and B-Real also guest.

The Guardian called his voice one of contemporary music's greatest pleasures, and Timothy Saccenti's glitched cover portrait is as memorable as the music. We file it under Hip Hop, though it has made a few polite enquiries about the Post-Punk section.

Also at Kops: more Danny Brown on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Warp / Fool's Gold (cat# WARPLP276), the 2016 album.