Elucid's Sonic Journey: Channeling New York's Urban Symphony
Seated within the immersive Dream House installation in Manhattan, experimental hip-hop artist Elucid closes his eyes and absorbs the environment. The space, created by composer La Monte Young and artist Marian Zazeela, features massive speaker cabinets in each corner, with pink and purple lights illuminating hanging mobiles. Violet-tinted windows obscure time's passage, while distinct drone compositions shift emphasis as visitors move through the room. After an hour of meditation, Elucid rises and finds a spot to lie down, letting the sounds wash over him completely.
From Childhood Sounds to Musical Vocabulary
Later, over cocktails at a nearby bar, Elucid reveals he drifted into a meditative state during the experience. His regular practice of using floatation tanks after tours prepared him for such immersive environments. "It takes a minute to get into another space, but I definitely got there," he explains. As the cascading tones enveloped him, words like "engine room" and "turbine" emerged in his mind, mirroring his creative process. "Sound has colour, emotion and force," Elucid observes. "Everyone who hears the same sound interprets it differently. I've developed a sound vocabulary, and oftentimes words pop in. Sometimes it's a whole sentence."
Growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, Elucid found familiarity in the Dream House's sounds. His childhood home near JFK International Airport meant plates rattled as planes flew overhead, while railroad tracks loomed above another family residence's backyard. These early auditory experiences fundamentally shaped his artistic sensibility.
New York's Perpetual Din as Musical Foundation
Much of Elucid's music—both his solo work and collaborations with Billy Woods as Armand Hammer—incorporates elements of New York's constant urban noise. Solo albums like Revelator and Valley of Grace feature spiky, sandblasted loops, while his production on Armand Hammer's 2018 breakthrough Paraffin carries the blunt, bulky quality of rush hour subway crowds. "I just like those sounds," Elucid admits. "I like the harmony of the city. Everybody's got a little solo at some point."
He recalls a recent drive through Brooklyn where Throbbing Gristle's "Hamburger Lady" synchronized perfectly with a nearby car alarm. "The outside environment bleeds into the music and it all syncs up," he notes, illustrating how urban chaos naturally integrates into his creative output.
Collaborative Explorations and Artistic Evolution
Elucid's newest release, I Guess U Had to Be There, represents a departure as he relinquishes production duties to Swiss collaborator Sebb Bash. "He's a super talented guy with an exceptional ear," Elucid says of Bash. "There's a studio full of instruments that he says he can't play, but all of a sudden, you got xylophone in the beat." While less serrated than his own production, the album maintains the woozy, layered psychedelic quality that characterizes Elucid's enveloping soundscapes.
Recorded between sessions for the heavier Revelator and Armand Hammer's latest album Mercy with the Alchemist, the Bash collaboration provided space for more celebratory expressions. "My morning starts in service," from opening track "First Light," directly references making breakfast for his children, while playful wordplay showcases his fascination with rap as craft. "You can't ever discount rapping about rapping," Elucid asserts. "You're putting words together stylishly and it doesn't have to have a structure or moral centre. It just has to sound fly."
Embracing Complexity Without Demanding Comprehension
Elucid's verses often unfold in stream-of-consciousness flows, with words seeming to materialize from the ether. While his work can be complex and esoteric, he doesn't prioritize literal comprehension from listeners. "When it don't rhyme, there's a reason / I climbed a tree before they flattened all meaning," he raps on "Fainting Goats," suggesting that over-analysis can drain music of its vitality. Raising his daiquiri in a toast, he smiles: "Shout out to simple cocktails," embracing both complexity and simplicity in artistic expression.
Through his solo explorations and Armand Hammer collaborations, Elucid continues to channel New York's sonic landscape into innovative hip-hop that finds harmony within urban chaos, creating music that resonates with both the city's perpetual din and moments of meditative stillness.
