Rhys Langston is an L.A. emcee/producer who has been steadily gaining steam and attention by carving out his own path, most notable with his 2017 album, Aggressively Ethnically Ambiguous. Now, as he gets ready to release his next full-length album, he preps things with a new EP, Master Fader On Speed Dial.

Master Fader On Speed Dial is an interesting release, mostly in the way that it seems like one thing on the surface, but then when you start to pay closer attention, you begin to realize what Langston is really doing here. Working with producer kato, you’ve got six songs clocking at around eleven minutes, with no real sense of hooks or completed song structure. You might think this was some kind of demo dump, but you’d only be about half right. These might not be fully formed masterpieces of songwriting, but there’s still a lot of depth and substance to this short release. Kato created some really interesting off-kilter, jazzy tracks that find a lot of room to throw in some unexpected elements without disrupting the overall flow of each song. And that brings us to Langston, who as a lyricist and emcee drops some real knowledge and creates some really intricate wordplay that will have you rewinding and listening through several times to catch everything he’s saying about identity, the music industry, and his personal life. Really, what this EP feels like is when you catch a glimpse at your friend’s sketch book, and you realize that there is some serious talent there, and they are on the verge of something great.

If Master Fader On Speed Dial is the rough sketches, I can’t wait to see the fully formed project that Langston has coming around the corner. He’s really come into his own and found his unique artistic voice, and he’s able to pack a lot into eleven minutes with this project.