Thorts is an emcee from Bunbury, Australia, who has been releasing music since the mid-2000s. He’s shown no signs of slowing down, either, with recent projects with Jack Vaul, Joel Simeus, Whatever Cecil, and DJ Silence. His most recent project found him working with Haunted Days to make the album Hanky Man, which came out this past March. Now he’s back with a new EP done in collaboration with Morgantown, West Virginia-based producer Unsung, The Unsung Thorts EP.

For a fifteen-minute EP like this, The Unsung Thorts EP packs quite a punch. Of course, that can happen when you have two artist like Unsung and Thorts who can have fun with it, but also know how to tackle some bigger issues and really flesh out a project. The project was initially conceived at the beginning of the pandemic, and it quickly becomes evident as you make your way through the EP and they tackle issues of isolation, community building, family, and government leadership, just to name a few. The EP opens especially strong with the one-two punch of “Molasses,” which features Chris Conde, and “Kookaburra.” “Molasses” features some great rhymes about the need for human connection and not just sharing ideas, but also touch. “Kookaburra” is an especially interesting song, because on its surface it sounds like a silly song that you could play for children, or at least the hook, but when you really spend time listening to the content, you realize that this is a really passionate song about using laughter and joy as an act of defiance and individuality. Unsung does a great job of not just producing some dope beats to rhyme to, but finding all of these moments to add an extra touch to take things over the top. This could be adding some actual kookaburra laughter to the track, or it could be a couple of interludes taken from some vintage recording about building bomb shelters that just reinforce the paranoia and isolation of the early days of COVID.

The Unsung Thorts EP could have easily been just a fun little side project that could serve as a place holder until bigger releases were ready. Instead, we get a fifteen-minute project from two very passionate artists who put everything they have into a small space, and in doing so they made a project that will really stick with you long after the music is over.