Last year, Lil Yachty released the left-turn psych-rock album Let’s Start Here., and he disparaged all of his older records, suggesting that he was changing up career lanes entirely. But that’s not what’s been happening. Instead, Yachty followed the LP with a string of one-off rap singles. Today, Yachty has collected a bunch of those tracks — including “Strike (Holster),” “Solo Steppin Crete Boy,” “A Cold Sunday,” and the Alchemist-produced J. Cole collab “The Secret Recipe” — on a new EP called Something Ether. He’s also dropped that EP’s title track, and it’s a wild one.
Lil Yachty’s new single “Something Ether” has a beat from Cardo, a veteran rap producer who usually makes pretty straightforward tracks. This isn’t one of those. Instead, “Something Ether” is a glitchy, discordant two-minute banger. Yachty goes crazy over it, with his flow breaking down and fracturing into digitally-warped shards. For a good chunk of the track, he’s just grunting. I like it! It’s about halfway between Yeat and JPEGMAFIA, and its disorienting video opens with a well-earned seizure warning. Check it out below.
The Something Ether EP is out now on Quality Control/Motown. Right now, Lil Yachty and James Blake are apparently working on a collaborative album called Bad Cameo, so don’t expect Yachty to stay in this lane for long.
