Steve Dalachinsky & RG Rough - The Lunatic Fridge [Bam Balam Records 078 Promo]

So what to do if one artist passes throughout the creation of a collaborative album effort? Leave it alone and abandon the project for good? Release unfinished or complete as intended as sort of a posthumous tribute? These and many other question might've popped up in the mind of RG Rough when New York-based poet Steve Dalchinsky died in September 2019, deep into the production process of his - now latest and last - album "The Lunatic Fridge" which is about to be released via Bam Balam Records in October, 2k20. And as tragic the circumstances surrounding this album are as great as a legacy it will be, with RG Rough getting the balance right between vintage Jazz elements evoking hazy memories of smoke-filled, long standing hidden late night bars attended by and known only to an exclusive local audience and intense, sometimes alarming, sometimes crimescene'esque, sometimes noir electronic textures whilst Dalachinsky's Spoken Word, partially eccentric, poetry comes at us in a non-stop stakkato like a massive information overload, spitting out a conscious, yet loose stream of stories told, repetetions, listings of Rock bands, free associations, thoughts, memories and word chains, all presented in a very specific tone that seems to have fallen out - or: never been part of... - this modern, highly digital world whilst feeling intensely urban, specifically new york'esque at times, bringing artists like Bukowski or Irene Lavina to mind, projects pictures of old street lights and dirty back alleys into ones most inner mind and reveals the nature of the city, man, mankind, humanity and entire societies all hidden and stored away behind glass panels, flashy lights and fancy facades these days. Timelessness and art defined in 50 minutes. Essential.