So, I listened to an album called The Walrus, the Ninja, and the Gypsy from Sydney, and I’m pretty sure I accidentally unlocked a third eye I wasn’t aware I had. It’s by Black Astronaut Records, which is apparently not a record label but a collective, a consciousness, or possibly just one very determined person with a cracked version of FL Studio and a personal vendetta against narrative cohesion.
What follows is not so much a music review as a field report from a spiritual encounter disguised as a rap album.
Now, this thing claims to be an album. But in practice, it’s more like what would happen if OutKast’s The Love Below was adapted into an Adult Swim cartoon and crashed into a T.I. single from 2010, and then had a psychedelic episode during an Ambien nap. And somehow, it works. Not consistently, not logically, but spiritually.
The first track, “Staring at the Ceiling,” kicks things off with the kind of unhinged whimsy you’d get if OutKast’s The Whole World had a depressive episode of sorts and wandered into a philosophy seminar by mistake. It’s got that peculiar combination of bounce and dread; like the beat is trying to throw a birthday party but can’t help but have a sense of awkwardness to it. It lurches forward with this uneven, slightly clownish gait, while the vocals drift somewhere between a confession and a half-remembered dream. And somehow, that works. There’s this oddly compelling push-pull between playfulness and existential rot, like someone trying to freestyle through a panic attack using only half-formed childhood memories and soft lighting. It shouldn’t hold together. But it does and by the end, you’re not sure if you’ve listened to a track or been diagnosed with something by your ceiling fan.
Then there’s “The Ambien Rap,” which is essentially a freestyle delivered over the instrumental from Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady.” Now, legally speaking, I’m not touching this with a ten-foot pole, but artistically? This track feels like performance art. Like someone took a very real mental health episode, wrapped it in a late-night YouTube conspiracy spiral, and hit record. It’s bizarre. It’s chaotic. It might be brilliant. I’m still deciding.
Things somehow get more commercial and less sane with “Jipped By The Gypsy,” a track that sounds like it escaped from a 2010 radio rotation hosted by T.I. and Pitbull. It’s got glossy synths, a beat designed for bottle service, and lyrics that feel like someone trying to flirt while having a mild existential crisis. I didn’t know whether to dance or call someone.
If there’s one track that distills the album’s chaotic genius, it’s “Who Is the Ninja?” A classic brag-rap format gets unmoored by production trickery: at one point, the beat literally cuts out mid-verse, leaving the rapper suspended in silence. Without missing a beat (pun intended), he deadpans, “Where’d the beat go?” followed by “Oh, there it is,” as the instrumental slams back in. It’s either the dumbest or the smartest thing I’ve ever heard, and I can’t tell which, which is what true art is, apparently.
Next is “Pez Dispenser,” which sounds like Tyler, The Creator took too much sugar and started beatboxing into a Game Boy. It’s jumpy, chaotic, and vaguely threatening. If you’ve ever wanted to feel like your brain is skipping a track while still technically vibing, well here you go.
Then comes “Kaleidoscope,” and suddenly we’re back in our feelings. It’s like B.o.B’s “Airplanes” from a parallel universe where no one ever went mainstream and everyone is haunted by a soft, echoing sense of failure. It’s an oddly great way to close the project out.
Musically, the entire album is stitched together with beats that feel like they were composed in dreams and then remixed by someone trying to remember them during a panic attack. It’s lo-fi and glitchy in some places, slick and radio-ready in others, like someone couldn’t decide between being a SoundCloud prophet or a Top 40 saboteur; so they just decided to be both.
There’s no genre loyalty here. One track wants to be Atlanta in 2006. The next wants to be inside your head during a serotonin crash. It’s a lot. But in a weird way, it knows it’s a lot. The entire album feels like it’s side-eyeing you while saying, “You don’t get it, but that’s okay. I barely do either.”
And that’s what saves it. It doesn’t pretend to be normal. It doesn’t want your approval. It’s not here for your playlist. It’s here for something stranger; a half-awake epiphany in the back of an Uber, a holy vision during a Taco Bell run, a full-on Ambien-fueled dissociative bop about shadow selves and maybe ninjas.
Final verdict: I have absolutely no idea if this album is good in the traditional sense. I don’t even think that’s the point. It’s interesting. It’s committed. And it’s doing something weird enough, real enough, and confusing enough that I’m still thinking about it days later.
Unless someone sues over the Eminem beat. Then maybe change that. Maybe to Eminemesque like what the tourism board of New Zealand did, causing them to subject lawyers and judges to have to listen to Eminem’s Lose Yourself in complete silence. Wild stuff. But hey, The Walrus, the Ninja, and the Gypsy from Sydney is just as wild, if not moreso.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
