Click album cover to D/L at Bandcamp.

Ricky Pharoe gets up on the weird side of the bed for this one. Re-monikered as Art Vandelay, They’ve Got My Number Down at the Post Office finds the MC and producer Mark Formway making antithetical rap music in the grand/odd tradition of their anti-establishmentarianist (is that a word?) brethren Black Lab Productions.

Formway builds thick, layered compositions from distorted low end, electric guitar riffs, muted high-hats, and idiosyncratic vocal samples from the likes of Ghostface Killah, Louis Armstrong and, of course, characters from Seinfeld. The producer often lets his beats build, setting the sonic tone for Pharoe’s cynical realism. The rapper is anti-record label, anti-financial institution, anti-justice system, pretty much anti-everything, really, which in the end amounts to…what exactly?

The MC’s bleak nihilism can be a bit of a downer, but it’s his wicked sense of humor and expert social observations that make They’ve Got My Number one of the most refreshing 206 releases of the year. I’m an eternal optimist, that’s just my nature; but there’s something to be said for allowing the morose to run through your brain synapses from time to time. It keeps us glass-half-full types honest, really.