Raw Poetic is a D.C. artist best known as one half of the duo formerly known as Panacea. The last we heard from him was just back in December, when he paired up with Damu The Fudemunk to release the album The Reflecting Sea. Now he comes back with a true solo album in Paging Mother Earth.

If you listened to Raw Poetic’s last album, or any album with Panacea, you probably have a feel for how Raw Poetic sounds working in the typical emcee and producer pairing, where he lays done some great rhymes over great beats. However, that won’t prepare you for what Raw Poetic is doing on this solo album. That’s because what you might not have known is that Poetic has been working really hard behind the scenes to learn multiple instruments, singing and production techniques. The result is an album in which Raw Poetic truly does everything, which is already an impressive feat in and of itself. What makes the album worth listening to is the unique sound that Raw Poetic developed in writing and recording this album. The music on the album is guitar and beat driven, with a lot of interesting loops and rhythmic patterns creating a style that draws upon from post-rock and shoe gaze, but also from Afro-pop. Raw Poetic does rhyme hear and there across the album, but he spends more time singing and building these vocal layers, not just harmonizing, but playing with the sonic textures of taking different short phrases and playing them against each other, and sometimes even over each other. On top of all of this interesting musical work and production that Raw Poetic has put together on this album, it shouldn’t be lost that Raw Poetic really does have a way with words, painting these beautiful, vivid pictures with his lyrics, along with posing all sorts of interesting philosophical questions along the way. It’s an album that is really easy to get lost in, and just let everything bounce around you headphones and unfold around you.

Paging Mother Earth might not be the album you were expecting from Raw Poetic, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what he did here. It’s different, to be sure, and you definitely won’t hear many other albums this year that sounds like this. Raw Poetic easily could have doubled down and just teamed up with Damu the Fudgemunk again, but he decided to challenge himself and his listeners, and the results are fantastic.