Beautiful Eulogy

Beautiful Eulogy is a hip hop group from Portland, Oregon, signed to the label Humble Beast. Composed of rappers Braille and Odd Thomas and producer Courtland Urbano, the group coalesced in 2011 while the three artists were involved in the creation of Braille's seventh release, Native Lungs. Known for its experimental and eclectic sound, the group melds myriad styles of hip hop with genres such as folk, electronic, hymn tunes, and modern worship music. After contributing a song to the charity compilation King Kulture and making a guest appearance on Lecrae's Church Clothes, the band released its debut album, Satellite Kite, on June 19, 2012. A second album, Instruments of Mercy, came out on October 29, 2013. Both albums met with critical claim, with particular praise directed at the group's creative, innovative sound and deep theological lyrics.

History

2011-2012: Formation

Beautiful Eulogy formed during the recording sessions of rapper Braille's seventh studio album Native Lungs and Odd Thomas's planned second studio album Satellite Kite. After Courtland Urbano agreed to produce Odd Thomas's planned album, the two traveled to Denver, Colorado, to help produce Braille's album. The two wanted to form a production team, and during discussions over an interlude for Native Lungs, they came up with the name "Beautiful Eulogy."^[1] Thomas and Urbano returned to Portland and began working on the album art and production for Satellite Kite.^[1] At this juncture, Braille and Thomas, owners of the Humble Beast record label, realized that they could not run their label while working as separate artists in different parts of the country. This, combined with Braille's decision to not make an eighth solo studio album, led the three artists decided to combine their efforts, and Beautiful Eulogy was born.^[1]

2012: Debut release

Beautiful Eulogy first appeared on Christian hip hop website Rapzilla's charity compilation King Kulture, released January 31, 2013, on which the trio, along with fellow Humble Beast members Theory Hazit and Lee Green, performed the title track.^[2][3] The group next appeared along with Propaganda and DJ Efechto on the Lecrae song "Misconception" from the mixtape Church Clothes.^[4] This track garnered much critical praise, with some reviewers considering it one of the best tracks from the mixtape.^[5][6] On June 19, 2013, Beautiful Eulogy released its debut album, Satellite Kite, in both a commercial format and a free download off Noisetrade. The album garnered much critical acclaim, with reviewers praising the album's innovation, deep, theologically complex lyricism, skilled rapping, and creative and unconventional production.^[6][7][8][9]

2013-present: Current activity

On August 20, 2013, Beautiful Eulogy released a music video for the song "Vital Lens" from its upcoming second studio album, Instruments of Mercy, and on September 10, 2013, "Vital Lens" was released as a single.^[10][11] Instruments of Mercy was released on October 29, 2013, in both commercial and free download format, and, like its predecessor, was met with critical acclaim.^[12][13][14] A second music video, "Lord Release Me from This Snare", was released on November 21, 2013.^[15]

Style

Beautiful Eulogy performs a hybrid, experimental form of hip hop that draws from genres such as folk, electronic, hymn tunes, and contemporary worship music.^[6][16] On Satellite Kite, Courtland Urbano explored styles including boom bap, R&B, industrial, electro-hip hop, soul, and indie rock.^[6][8][9] Rapzilla highlighted some of the unconventional sounds used by Urbano, such as dripping water, wind, and harmonica.^[8] Sphere of Hip Hop compared the experimental and electronic style of the album's beats to Flying Lotus and the Brainfeeder label.^[17] On Instruments of Mercy, Urbano used entirely organic and natural sounds, with the electronic sounds on the album created by analog synthesizer instead of being generated by a computer.^[18] Stylistically, on this album the group continued to draw from and folk, electronic, and indie, and reviewers stated that it sounded almost more like a worship album than a hip-hop recording.^[13][19][20] For this recording, Urbano used sound affects such as dripping water, dial tones, wind chimes, rain, chirping birds, footsteps, and rustling leaves, and instruments such as electric and acoustic guitar, tamborine, drums, xylophone, piano, keyboard, strings, and glockenspiel.^{[13][14][21][22]} HM stated that the album "has musical textures to draw heads deep in their given genre, as well as neo-folkies and aficionados of downtempo EDM."^[12] The magazine further elaborated that the group surpasses even Eminem at matching penetrating rhymes to soaring female choruses, ventures to "reinvent hip-house, albeit in a more glitchy manner", and "manages the tricky triptych of doctrinal/theological incisiveness, inventive musical engagement and, were this a better world, a left-field pop sensibility that could allow these fellas share pop radio time with Jay-Z and Flo Rida while shaming them with intelligent spitting."^[12]

References