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

‘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.

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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