Wisconsin emcee Milo made a splash last year with his exceptional debut, I wish my brother Rob was here. It introduced us to a young, awkward emcee who had a knack for constructing unusual lines over indie-rock samples. While the style was unique, what made him really special was the smart social commentary and deep emotional confessions contained within those lines. A few months after dropping that release, Milo is right back at, this time using the material of anticon. artist Baths as the source material for an EP.

While the initial explanation of the EP sounds like a novelty with a cute title, one listen will convince you otherwise. I never listened to Baths’ Ceruleans and wondered what his music would sound like with an emcee, but I’m glad that Milo did. If you’ve never listened to Baths, you are missing out on some truly beautiful and gentle instrumental electronic music. Now that I’ve heard this EP, it’s obvious that his style of music makes for good conversation with Milo’s half-spoken confessions and observations. I think the strongest song on the EP has to be “Atlas Flushed (Grumpy Groucho Marxist Response),” which uses Baths “Apologetic Shoulder Blades,” one of his more aggressive tracks, to great effect. The song opens with the repeated refrain of “When I meet the man up top, I will bargain for nothing, and I will accept my lot among those who are suffering.” This gives way to some really smart and moving observations about morals, drugs, race, philosophy, music, and living up to expectations. While these are heavy topics, Milo definitely employs humor to cut the tension, where it serves as both a coping mechanism and a way to establish common ground with his listeners. Jokes about Mean Girls, Lord of the Rings, and video games can be funny at face value, but also hint at bigger truths in the context of his songs. The only fault I really have with this EP is that while some songs come together perfectly, others just reside in the middle, still enjoyable, but they don’t stand out. What I’m really getting at is that Milo rapping over beats Baths made a while is good, I think that if they worked together, they could make something really great. Who knows, it could happen.

That said, Milo’s finding his own voice and style, and it’s really exciting to hear him come into his own. As a lyricist and emcee, he’s carving out his own space, and Milo Takes Baths shows that his first mixtape was no fluke. I’ll be excited to see what comes next.