Bleep

Following 2023's Robed in Rareness, Shabazz Palaces gather another host of collaborators to push their leftfield hip hop visions to the farthest realms. Exotic Birds of Prey is a mini album of deep mystical grooves and swirling warped flows, where Ishmael Butler mythologises the rap game with spiritual verses before embarking on dark diplomatic relations in electro space operas. As our intergalactic ASMR radio host says on ‘Synth Dirt’, Exotic Birds of Prey is full of “genrebending, super synthetic and weird sounds”, from the speeding breakbeat rhythms and ripping guitars of ‘Well Known Nobody’, to the twisting asymmetrical beat and captivating smoky synthfunk of ‘Angela’.