Local Review: Scouty – Prophet
Local Music Reviews
Scouty
Prophet
Self-Released
Street: 12.13
Scouty = Twenty One Pilots + X Ambassadors
For some reason, us millenials like to make fun of the fact that we all have crippling depression. It seems like it’s the brunt of at least 30% of all memes out there. For local musician Scouty, it’s as if he took those memes and turned them into an alternative hip-hop album.
Prophet perfectly captures a certain sort of coping mechanism: the attempt to make something out of the bummer moods we have. The album is very lyrically driven, as you would traditionally see in hip-hop. There’s a deep theme to every song, and what the writer has to say is a big message and inspires every other element of the song. “Pass It On” is written like a poem from a very personal context. Toward the middle, Scouty sings: “I wake up feeling so alone / So I’m sleeping in to pass the time / Cuz lately living is a sacrifice / Not doing it for my delight / I’m doing it for you and I.” Prophet really gets into the grind of that sinking and hopeless feeling we all have as young people, just trying to figure out where our place is in the world.
Beyond the lyrics, you can find a lot of 808-driven bass, electronic and popping beats, heavy and intense synthesizers and a whole lot of well-planned intros and outros. One song, “I See You,” ends with 30 seconds of quiet rain and a thunder strike. Many of the intros are constructed of both MIDI and live audio samples. “Calamity,” probably my favorite song on the album, begins with what sounds like a brass instrument that’s been digitally reconstructed to have a lot more attitude. All over the rest of the tracks you can find a versatile set of instruments and effects—acoustic and electric guitar, bell/vibraphone effects, cranked auto tune & vocal effects, audio samples, thickly layered vocal harmonies, drum modules, layered synths, and much more.
Prophet is an album to turn up to—one that makes your head bob and fingers bounce, but you could cry in bed while you listen, and that works too. –Mary Culbertson
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