No Idols

Flush with lingering Euro-prog vibes and striking while the Odd Future hype was upholding its own corner of the sky, No Idols was one of the best pure concentrated doses of the OFWGKTA’s most low-key talent before the arrival of his “official” debut studio album Genesis in 2016. Alchemist’s production takes some fascinating risks: the guitar-and-piano rock wail of “Prophecy” withholds any sort of drums where a well-placed boom-bap would’ve made it a god-mode anthem, “Me and My Bitch” flutters endlessly on an oscillation that sounds like a cross between a Fender Rhodes and a dialtone, and the fatal four-way battle of “Elimination Chamber” builds off a jazzy fusion loop that builds up an almost unbearable unresolved tension.