Kenny Edwards, LeRoy Marinell, Warren Zevon LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, Warren ZevonĮxcitable Boy Previously Unissued Outtake, 1978 It contains tracks from all ten of his albums released during this period, and includes contributions to soundtracks and his one-off album with members of R.E.M., Hindu Love Gods.ĭisc one collects recordings done for Asylum, and disc two collects recordings done for Virgin and Giant Records. It spans his career from his eponymous debut album on Asylum Records to date of release, ignoring his disowned initial album from 1969, Wanted Dead or Alive. It's a scary, difficult album, but one well suited for our times.I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (An Anthology) is a two-disc compilation album by American singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, released on Rhino Records in 1996. But when El-P sticks to what he knows- chronicling the grime - I'll Sleep When You're Dead is every bit as good as its predecessor.
#ILL SLEEP WHEN I AM DEAD FULL#
The song is full of cringe-worthy lines such as "you deserve the ignorance and bliss that I wish I still had," and is too emo for its own good. The jaded pose is a good look for El, and when the album tries to emote, such as on "The Overly Dramatic Truth", it falls flat on its face. But, as the song fades, El-P is unwilling to cop to his own seriousness, and the track fades with him and Cage laughing off the drama they've just conjured.
"Habeas Corpus" is similar in spirit to Fantastic Damage's "Stepfather Factory", and provides a makeshift metaphor for our own country's desire for vindication and liberation. He tries to escape, but of course escape is illusionary and temporary. He's fallen in love with prisoner #247681Z, and his job is suddenly full of contradiction and nuance. (From the gunshots sprinkled throughout, it's easy to imagine what that would entail.) "It's almost romantic," Cage comments, but El-P doesn't share the enthusiasm. Their task is to "facilitate the end" for the incarcerated. Elsewhere, lead-single "Smithereens" begins with a snippet of what could be a sunny, Bob Dorough track, before a voice interjects, "Bring me the dramatic intro machine," and squishy horror synths introduce one of El-P's most caustic songs to date.īut perhaps the most explicit instance of the album's dark humor comes at the end of "Habeas Corpses", which imagines El-P and guest rapper Cage as workers aboard a futuristic prison ship. Afterwards, a distant voice chimes in, "sorry about that, guys" as robotic backing vocals emerge from a miasma of corrosive, clunky rhythms to provide a mocking refrain of sorts. "I stood up for the God's of ore mining/ In a military humvee with no bullet-proof siding," El-P raps on "Drive". The album works best at these moments, when it's sneering into the abyss and spitting out gallows humor. On "Drive", he talks of a kid who "fuel injected a speed ball," before later admitting with a wink "my triple-A card has one too many initials."
The reply never comes, and he stumbles along like Rory Cochrane, too dazed to be angry or to put all the pieces together. America is ablaze and El-P is fucked up from the floor up: "Why should I be sober when God is so clearly dusted out his mind?" the rapper asks on "Smithereens". And you'd burst into fire, forever."Įl-P spends 13 tracks exploring the freefalling fatalism of that quote.
"For a long time, you wouldn't feel anything. "Faster and faster," heroine Laura Palmer replies. "Do you think that if you were falling in space that you would slow down after a while or go faster and faster?" the first voice (Moira Kelley's Donna Hayward) asks. "Tasmanian Pain Coaster", the album's first track, kicks off with a sample from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Though I'll Sleep When You're Dead is (slightly) more textured and melodic than its predecessor, El-P's production is still amongst the most jarring in hip-hop, and his themes and shading remain pitched to black, haunted by the prospect of a dystopian near-future: Cigarettes are extinguished on wet palms, prisoners are raped before execution, and El-P- our crazed, sometimes indecipherable narrator- sticks his head out of a hoopde, screaming "freedom is mine." In this world, as in ours, we're coasting in the fast lane "with doom and disease." Like El-Producto says, "The whole design got my mind crying."