NEW MUSIC | THE ATMOSPHERE (@atmosphere) RELEASE ‘JEROME’ AHEAD OF THEIR NEW ALBUM MI VIDA LOCAL

atmosphereAtmo­sphere have released their new video and track ‘Jerome’  ahead of their up com­ing album release for’ Mi Vida Loc­al’ out on the 5th Octo­ber.

The last time we checked in with Slug and Ant was on 2016’s Fish­ing Blues, the latest chapter in a string of albums show­cas­ing the pair’s evol­u­tion from tor­tured hedon­ists into settled-down dads mak­ing kicked-back rap records. It would have been nice to carry on think­ing they were finally at well-earned peace after two dec­ades of extens­ively doc­u­mented tri­als and tribu­la­tions. But just because your corner of the globe is peace­ful, that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world stops turn­ing.

It’s a dif­fer­ent place than it was two years ago, and the sev­enth Atmo­sphere album, Mi Vida Loc­al, reflects the ways in which the world–and Atmosphere’s place in it–have changed. The idyll­ic domest­icity of the past few records has morph­ed into anxi­ety over keep­ing loved ones safe dur­ing tur­bu­lent times. Instead of brag­ging about back­stage mis­ad­ven­tures it’s about grap­pling with mor­tal­ity. The easy­going col­lab­or­a­tion between Ant and Slug has star­ted to feel more like the life-or-death intim­acy of two men trapped togeth­er on a life­boat.

At times it’s a heavy album (“I might be the last gen­er­a­tion of grand­par­ents,” goes a key line from “Virgo”), but it’s far from grim. There are jokes being cracked, joints get­ting smoked, a little trash talk­ing and beef­ing here and there–after all, it’s still a rap record.

And Atmosphere’s nev­er soun­ded bet­ter.

As the name implies, Mi Vida Loc­al is intensely focused on the place it was created–the south­side of Minneapolis–where Slug and Ant work tire­lessly in their “beau­ti­ful base­ments”, refin­ing their sound without inter­rup­tion. (Although a hand­ful of friends from the Min­neapol­is hip-hop com­munity showed up to con­trib­ute.) A year of one-on-one col­lab­or­a­tion res­ult­ing in an album that matches com­plex sub­ject mat­ter with equally deep beats–ones that show a clear lin­eage back to the psy­che­del­ic funk land­marks from an earli­er era where Amer­ica was going through a post-uto­pi­an hangover, and prove that there won’t ever be a time where boom-bap beats don’t sound per­fectly of the moment.

Mi Vida Loc­al might be the best album Atmosphere’s ever made. It’s def­in­itely the one they needed to make right now, and one listen­ers need to hear just as urgently. If it’s some­times an album about how the fight to find hap­pi­ness nev­er really ends–even after you get the house and the kids and the artist­ic free­dom to make dad-rap records–it’s also about dis­cov­er­ing that there’s hap­pi­ness to be found just in fight­ing.

Mi Vida Loc­al is due for release on the 5th Octo­berhttps://rse.lnk.to/MiVidaLocal

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless. Currently working in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media knowledge to I am Hip Hop and other projects by No Bounds.