At a time when the Irish music scene can appear dominated by indie and alternative rock bands, it may come as a surprise that one of the best pieces of Irish music so far this year has come from Cork rapper and producer Spekulativ Fiktion. His latest EP, “Deathly Words”, is an evocative journey into the dark underbelly of modern Ireland, packed with intelligent lyrics and layers of sharp melody.
The EP opens with a short instrumental, simply titled Intro. In a sort of overture laying out the themes to come, Intro finishes out with a quote from the film The Omega Man. The lines “We were warned of Judgement, well, here it is,” could just as easily serves as a review of “Deathly Words” as well as the words spoken by the last living human in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
This flows seamlessly into the bombastic Mission Statement. Almost every line begs repeat listens to get the full weight of meaning, as they flow poetically into each other, jumping from clever internal rhymes to assonance-laden free verse while constantly corresponding to the accompanying beat. Spekulativ Fiktion flies urgently through line after line of elegant rhythmic construction, venting his fury with harsh lyrical turns like “this world is full of actors and calculated theatrics/ taking advantage of the average man is his triumphs and tragedies”.
Night Owls moves away from the explorations of abstract fictional concepts to directly address a life of unpleasant employment prospects and messy nights out on the piss. After less than two minutes the song fades out the repeated refrain of, “This is just another night out/ it’s about time now the boys broke another fucking fight out./ This is what we live for/ war on the dancefloor/ listen to the roars of the night owls.”
The sheer rage that Spekulative Fiktion unleashes could easily be totally repellent, rendering the music unlistenable. But instead there is something incredibly compelling about “Deathly Words” that makes it very hard to turn away from. It evokes darkness, sadness and pain, but it does so with such power and grace that the EP forms a compelling musical journey into the dark recesses of society and the human mind.
The eight tracks on “Deathly Words” stream into each other without pause, with the end of one track morphing seamlessly into the beginning of the next. The whole thing is over in less than twenty minutes but the short EP carries far more weight than many albums twice or three times its length.
Despite a grim outlook and depressing introspection into the heartbreak of everyday life, “Deathly Words” is a breath of fresh air – an Irish artist with a genuinely original sound that has appeared from nowhere, exhibiting an almost prophetic ability to lay bare the faults of failings of Irish society. Spekulativ Fiktion makes plenty of nods to some of the giants of rap and hip-hop without ever sounding derivative. At first his distinctive Cork accent seems jarring, given that his sound is at times so reminiscent of American rappers, but by the second or third track this new voice comes completely into its own, and Spekulativ Fiktion becomes something unique.
“Deathly Words” showcases as Spekulativ Fiktion as songwriter with the ability for incisive and sometimes painful introspection, laying his own turmoil out in the form of music in an attempt to show that these feelings are somehow universal. The EP is an apathetic exploration of bleak reality coded in the language of science fiction, horror and fantasy, which emphasises Spekulativ Fiktion’s gift for incisive lyrical twists.