Doris

When Odd Future crashed the party in 2010, they seemed, momentarily, like marauders. Now that the Golgi Apparatus of the music industry has more or less broken them down for useable parts — a cartoon show, a pop-up clothing store, corporate sponsorships — they resemble nothing so much as a good, old-fashioned, harmless dysfunctional family. Like any family, they have their louts and their geniuses, their ne’er-do-wells and good kids — Tyler, the Creator is the braying patriarch; Frank Ocean is the successful cousin who moved to Europe and who only returns for reunions.

But Earl Sweatshirt? He’s the kid brother, the one everyone huddles around protectively and gives extra space.  He’s the only one with any of that original OF mythos still surrounding him: He’s the kid in the barbershop chair; he was the subject of an amateur manhunt at the blood-crazed height of the OF feeding frenzy. It’s a burden he grimaces slightly under but doesn’t reject on Doris, his calmly incredible and long-awaited full-length debut. Earl remains better at stringing words together than anyone his age, or triple it; pick any stretch of Doris and be mowed over by quotables, the kind that practically compel you… read more »