YUNGMORPHEUS and Fumitake Tamura (a.k.a Bun) will present Mazal, their first collaborative album, for Leaving Records, out August 9. 

After meeting online through a mutual respect for each others’ work, the two linked up at a brief 2017 Low End Theory performance and then began trading files back and forth over the next two years. Mazal, its title taken from a Japanese word meaning “a mixture of things,” is the result, described by the Los Angeles label as “a cohesive yet varied album documenting stressful trials, psychedelic endeavours, and copious inhalations of marijuana.” 

We’re told that Tamura’s experimental beats provide an “exquisitely warped” foundation for the project. Of his composition process, he writes: “I wanted to make music that I haven’t made before. For example, I would subtract some sounds to make the song unbalanced or unstable, and then I would look for new sounds to re-balance the track in a different way. Also, because the rapping is dynamic, I wanted to keep the beats minimal. I tried to make a new kind of feeling by balancing those two elements.” 

YUNGMORPHEUS writes: “There’s a lot of different sonic textures in there that I usually don’t find myself gravitating towards, but it felt fire to step outside of a lot of unnecessary comfort zones.” 

Vocals were recorded in Brooklyn and Los Angeles between 2016-2018 using a Tascam DR-40, and the lyrics are full of cutting observations on American life. The album’s first half is steeped in a persistent, paranoiac dread, while the back half tackles more earthly matters on funkier cuts like “General Barca” and the jazzy, tranquil interlude “Stay Twistin’.” 

Mazal LP lands August 9, with streams available over at Bandcamp now. 

Tracklisting

01. Blunted 

02. Last Days // Ashtrays

03. Combustion

04. Top Notch

05. Stray Thoughts

06. Quantum Leap

07. Stay Twistin

08. Watch Me 

09. General Barca

10. Samson

11. Blunted (Instrumental)

12. Last Days // Ashtrays (Instrumental)

13. Combustion (Instrumental)

14. Top Notch (Instrumental)

15. Stray Thoughts (Instrumental)

16. Quantum Leap (Instrumental)

17. Stay Twistin (Instrumental)

18. Watch Me (Instrumental)

19. General Barca (Instrumental)

20.Samson (Instrumental)