After releasing the brilliant Rappers Will Die Of Natural Causes earlier this year and touring with JNaturaL, Open Mike Eagle decided he has more to say. To follow up his album, he’s decided to release a series of four EPs, each one using a remix of a song off of RWDONC as a starting point. It’s an interesting twist on the major album follow up, and given the quality of Eagle’s album and the artists he’s collaborating with, I’m definitely excited to see where this series takes us. The first installment uses a remix of “Nightmares” done by Busdriver as a starting point.

The remix is not a huge departure from the original, except Busdriver adds more tension to the song by putting a more disjointed beat underneath it and playing with vocal effects on the chorus to make it sound a bit more eerie. I think he does a good job of walking the line between the pleasant dreamlike atmosphere of the original version and hinting at something darker underneath the surface. They are obviously playing with themes that film directors like David Lynch or Tim Burton or John Waters have used, where they take a seemingly normal, pleasant neighborhood and explore the darkness or weirdness that is hiding in the shadows. My favorite song on the EP is “Billy’s Quagmire,” produced by Blockhead. Eagle does a great job of using Slaughterhouse Five as a metaphor for exploring how aspects of his youth still affect him today. “Four Days,” produced by Busdriver is a great awkwardly hilarious song dealing with a series of unfortunate incidents various bathrooms. “Wolfmother Wallpaper,” produced by N/A, is more abstract in it’s imagery, and might be the strangest song on the EP. “Experimental Dreams FLCL,” produced by Awkward is much more playful, as Eagle explores themes of dreams and imagination and creativity. It’s definitely the warmest song on the EP and is certainly a nice note to end on.

Given how well this EP complimented and extended the work that Eagle did on Rappers Will Die Of Natural Causes, I can’t wait to see where the rest of the series takes us. Few artists are successfully challenging their listeners the way Open Mike Eagle has been doing this year.