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Now is the summer of our solipcistic malcontent. Contrary to his sarcastic assertion “I am different in a different way,” Sage Francis’s debut album fits right in with both Anticon and the general sway of US hiphop in 2002. Not only have Eminem, Slug, Alias, El-P and now Sage Francis saved their most embittered and disconsolate work for the summer but this season’s releases, epitomised by Personal journals mark unprecedented depths of self-absorption. The album’s tracks may at first appear to be plaintive commentaries upon a range of issues such as contemporary hiphop culture, drugs or women. However,these topics are but the varnished surface upon which Sage Francis projects and studies his own self-image with incisive gallows humour – it’s as if he’s got his own brutally honest hall of mirrors. For instance, the amazing saxophone laiden Inherited scars has been labelled as the first rap about self-harm but it is more accurate to describe the track as Sage’s realisation of the ways in which his sister’s self-harming Spurs him onto reassessing his public and personal duties and capabilities as the reluctant man of the house. His potential to make a mark as a public performance artist is continually juxtaposed with intimate images of communication and oft misread social signalling. Likewise, the damning showbiz expose “smoke and mirrors” may, on its surface, be about the politrix plaguing the celebrity factory and music industry but as Sage jokes “I like the smell of coke!” it is in fact another opportunity for this straight-edged lyricist to explicate his own personal integrity. Whereas his previous collections often flipped between poiniant social commentary, comedic anecdote and philosophical inquiry, this project’s topical coherance exhibits a sinister single-mindedness. The pugnacious confessions of the percussion-driven Pitchers of Silence finds Francis with a lot to get off his chest - but what exactly is bugging sage so much that he’s published his professed “personal journals?” The subject of the Scott Matelic produced Broken Wings could easily be the Statue of Liberty and all the values she is supposed to embody. It could also be a personification of (H)iphop in it’s (E)ssence for ®eal a la Common’s I used to love H.e.r. It could just be about a woman he admires. This track may serve well as an extended metaphor for both those and countless other things or people. However, tracks including b>Eviction Notice and Crackpipes suggest there is only one woman deserving of such high regard. It is apparent that Francis wrote much of the album Reeling from a breakup and this has compelled him to realise, through art, the most important relationship in his life; namely that between himself and his mother. The discordant Odd Nosdam-produced Eviction Notice and it’s transition from scraping metallic noises to brutal rock guitar takes Sage back to a childhood spent hiding under his bed as he imagines the unspoken motivations of his underappreciated Mother and her useless partner. As Sage looks back through his life and relationships, the strength of the Maternal bond and fears of abandonment are repeatedly implied as the source of the adult Sage’s fear of committing andbeing intimate. Subsequently, despite all his efforts to avoid following in the footsteps of the useless substitute father-figures who appear to have driven his mother to the drinks and medecine cabinets, Message Sent is part of Sage’s self-portrait of an emotionally bankrupt vagrant wrapped up in aggressive self-deprecation. Sage, the spurned lover and guilt-ridden son continues to sink further into himself with egocentric declorations like “she wants to dance to my pulse but I’ve got heart mermurs.” Specialist, finds Sage raving about the protracted death of a romantic relationship via grotesque alienating lyrics like “I spread my love like the legs of a crack whore” and such twisted rage reminds me strongly of the voice of Tennyson’s Maud. There is a breif break from Sage’s torments such as the childhood escapism alluded to during climb trees. However, the underlying message of the track is that whilst such childish behaviour can, albeit momentarily, offer a new perspective on things, noone can remain stationary forever nor defer dealing with this messed up world indefinitely. And so his gruelling quest continues.. Sage repeatedly exploits a single memory to ignite tracks of regression during which he can then indulge and hopefully exorcise his monomania. The most notable instance of this is a song about the Black Sweatshirt which both offers a link into more halcyon days and may be also barring himn from moving into the future. Whilst there are many different memories and items triggering tracks across the album, only one rhetorical tactic is prominent throughout Sage’s recollection of his own life and loves-lost. In the same way that one lego brick is subject to a shift in structural status with each new brick added to it and the growing model, the meaning of each consecutive word of Sage’s lyrics shift with the continual affixing and insertion of words to canibalise proverbs and doctor common phrases. This self-proclaimed "avant-guardian-angel" first deployed this technique during All word no play and now, the heavy reliance upon this same linguistic lego box for an entire album complies with his own advice to “don’t get fancy with your paintbrush when yu reminisce” However, as clever as such wordplay may be, he himself soon makes the prognosis that “Word is-still-born.” The painful irony at the heart of this album is Sage’s acute awareness of being locked in this double-bind whereby the flipside of contrivedly guarded disclosure to us is denial for him. Having blockaded himself behind fortified walls of loquacious wordplay, this “anti-socialite” has made an example of himself. He has sentenced himself to solitary confinement in the “avant-gard-en of Edan” doing ever-decreasing “father-figure eights,” with no right to parole. His delivery may vary wildly between spokenword pontificating to crazed rants. However, given Personal Journals ‘s narrow topical scope, this meticulous work lacks the extreme contrasts and shifts in tone of his previous collections. Indeed, there is only one instance of remission from the morbid introspection, namely a recording of a live AOI rap-rock parody of Bob Seger's Turn the Page. It is therefore left to the album’s troop of elite beatsmiths to craft contours and cultivate contrast around Francis’s obsessive verses. The closest “Personal Journals” gets to the wild emotional pendulum of his previous compendiums is the MR Dibbs-produced Kill Ya Momz interlude where a death-metal pastiche segways into a young Sage Francis reciting a cute Mothering Sunday rap. Each producer, be it Controller 7, Sixtoo, Joey Beats, Odd Nosdam, Jel or Mayonnaise complement Sage’s fixated pieces when their many contrasting styles and sounds somehow blend together into an engrossing transitional score. The album flows with ease from the timpani-drum driven Different, through the grainy sp1200 jinglejangle of Climb trees to the sentimental ballad vibes of Runaways.
The arc of regression, initiated by Different which charters a path back from sophisticated adult artist, through frustrated adolescence and to the innocent imagination of childhood comes full circle with Runaways. The album began with Sage addressing his status within contemporary hiphop culture as an adult artist and in contrast, the melancholic Runaways concludes Sage’s regression with his unique style being represented as a missing orphan. I have, during this review, singled out tracks to serve as examples of what I’m on about but I can’t really single any tracks which leap out as candidates for hit singles. Given how this is an album of complex interlocking connections and convoluted fabrications both in design and content, this album is most impressive when consumed as one enthralling whole. This album is so rich that if I were to start this review afresh, I could refer to different tracks and extract different quotes to take a whole new route through the work – and that’s rare. Nonetheless, even if I had instead referred to so far unmentioned tracks like the stoic spoken-word piece Hopeless or the mysterious midnight encounters of Cup of tea, my conclusion would be the same. Personal Journals is heavy stuff.
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Sage Francis Personal Journals LP