REVIEW | KARL SAGE (@KarlSageMusic) ‘THE PICTURE OF DORIAN SAGE’ EP

By Faizah Cyanide • On Reviews , , ,

KS‘The Pic­ture of Dori­an Sage’ (pro­duced by GGpeney using a akai Mpc 4000), drops on 01 Septem­ber 2018, 9 tracks by prom­ising UK Hip Hop artist Karl Sage. The album con­sists of nine tracks of con­scious Hip Hop, calm and reflect­ive makes you think on a deep­er level con­tem­plat­ing on the mys­ter­ies of life. The intro track ‘Dori­an Grey’ has a flow so smooth it’s almost like the track was laid down in one breath, it encap­su­lates the heart and soul of this album. Through­out this album vari­ous themes are explored which can also be found in the nov­el by Oscar wilde, ‘The Pic­ture of Dori­an Grey’ from which the album name is inspired. It’s refresh­ing to find a ref­er­ence to clas­sic lit­er­at­ure in mod­ern day music. The gen­er­al concept of feel­ing immor­tal, liv­ing life without con­sequences for your actions in order to be your ‘true self’. A reflec­tion mater­i­al­ized by the gen­er­a­tion of today, liv­ing through social media with little regard for the after effects of indul­ging in vices on their phys­ic­al and men­tal health. How shal­low soci­ety has become, and the empty voids are not filled with hedon­ist­ic pleasures.

The album is scattered with skits from the ‘Pic­ture of Dori­an Grey’ movie which gives it a cine­mat­ic feel. Cigar­ettes and Gin is one of my favor­ite tracks on the album, the instru­ment­al is some­what eer­ie which suits what feels like reflec­tions in the early hours of the morn­ing, explor­ing what built our nation, ‘cracks in the city where the soul­less roam, like motion drones’ is such a power­ful line.

We all have aspir­a­tions, ‘Foun­tain of Youth’ explores this with lines like, ‘every­where you look there is someone selling dreams’ and the price people pay to fol­low their own dreams, sac­ri­fices which must be made. Hard work will always pay off and you have to deal with the jeal­ousy and envy.

dorian

We are liv­ing in a time where every­one one has become com­pla­cent, what would hap­pen if we erased all the root of evil and star­ted again? This is what the track, ‘Blank Can­vas’ is all about, a power­ful thought. I liked the word­play on mix­ing col­ors (races) on the palette link­ing the concept of end­ing racism to the track title.

A very chilled track ‘Free Your Mind’ urges us to think out­side of the box and that to ‘opu­lence in life comes with a price’ which we all know is true, it addresses Cap­it­al­ism sand con­sumer cul­ture, that we should really just take a second to kick back and enjoy the simple things in life such as women wear­ing no makeup.

I was com­pletely lost in, ‘City Over­tones’, feat Melan­in 9, the hook line of ‘where the motion drones’ The enjoyed the world play and the instru­ment­al per­fectly fit the sen­ti­ments in the lyr­ics. Try­ing to make the most out of your situ­ation, I really did feel like I was float­ing through ruins of ancient civil­iz­a­tions as the top­ics dis­cussed on this track are repeated through generations.

A more groun­ded track, ‘Bad Girl’ based on a true story, explores rela­tion­ships, issues of trust and unfaith­ful­ness and the com­plex emo­tions which come with it.

‘Ecstasy’ is an explor­a­tion of indul­ging in mind alter­ing sub­stances anoth­er means of escape from real­ity, and this track cer­tainly is trippy and paints a vivid ima­gine of human connection.

The album is a col­lec­tion of intel­lec­tu­al thought-pro­vok­ing lyr­ics, address­ing the truths of life look­ing behind the smoke and mir­rors, of soci­ety unfair expect­a­tions and our path to self-dis­cov­ery and hap­pi­ness. A very artic­u­late account of how life can be bit­ter­sweet, an album well worth listen­ing too.

The new album is avail­able on all music stream­ing platforms.

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Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clin­ic­al research by pro­fes­sion and has been an avid Hip Hop lov­er since the early 90’s, hav­ing cre­ated her own Hip Hop event, ‘Breakin’ Bound­ar­ies’ in the early 2000’s which was pre­dom­in­antly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al events pro­moters and dan­cers to inspire oth­ers through this artform.

About Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clinical research by profession and has been an avid Hip Hop lover since the early 90's, having created her own Hip Hop event, 'Breakin' Boundaries' in the early 2000's which was predominantly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with several international events promoters and dancers to inspire others through this artform.