Confession One : I turned on that new Paris Texas EP (the older one of two) while I was playing a video game and two things became one—the sound of me cutting through hordes of the undead slowly blended into the angry synths rising around rappers Louie Pastel and Felix. Their Zelda-core intro track doesn't help that either: there's a sword, it's dangerous to go alone, we all know the drill. They Left Me With: (The Sword, A Gun) doesn't really waste any more time after introductions. The two new EPs are a welcome and relentless attack on my senses: it's like they discovered a big round button connected to my lower brainstem and settled for repeatedly punching it in the face.
The visuals are fantastic, pasting the best parts of the Balenciaga chevalier armor over the rickety ceiling fan boredom of the suburbs. It feels like playing NES for the first time on a beige carpet that's twice as old as you are – it feels like being rap successful in your mom’s house. Both sides of PT star in a pair of shorts (dir. Dan Streit) as cojoined twins who are split apart by a clearly evil talking sword who aligns them to illegitimate pursuits of money, lust, and generally mainstream tendencies. It eventually becomes a gun in the second short and continues to encourage sex-money-murder until the twins take it down in order to live a simple life. It's hard to miss all the parallels: angst is something equally shared by knights looking for a noble cause and bored dudes swiping endlessly right on Tinder. The narrative comes across like a call to arms for making weird art that's true to you: and now that they're touring with Tyler, it comes across as a deserved victory lap. After slowly carving out their own niche of 'trap-rock' (whatever that means), they're comfortable enough to scream on one track and sing on another: and the visuals reflect that. Or maybe the armor is really cool and they just needed something new to get a moshpit started on tour.
Confession Two : I didn't love these albums like that until I listened whilst walking through Union Square Station. My heroic destiny was the Q train to the L or the F or something, I can't even remember now. Point is, I'm walking through this completely man-made cavern of sweat and instinct when I really understand Paris Texas . Bass thumps and crazy bars screech as I turn up my volume to match the stress my eyes are feeling. I'm glaring through people to open the space I need to dart through. Tantrum, mudbone , and infinyte all tear through my ears. Some guy is walking on the wrong side - fuck this guy. Felix and Pastel both alternate between screaming and growling. "Ugly-ass n—, I had to grind for the love" Pastel yells. Damn right. I push through a crowd of backpack losers and witness a mango cart blocking the entire platform. "Running around this shit don't stop" says Louie as I walk between her and her own cart. The voice of the Sword-Gun-Zelda thing comes in just to egg us all on. I'm hating everyone in sight for no reason other than it feels good. I enter the train fast and sit down: just as the last song on Sword starts. The smooth melody of El Camino picks up, the train starts accelerating, and I feel drained.. but pleasant. Then -
"Paris still around 'cause that rent never past due" comes the line. The albums switch and "I can't escape what I do" is the first line of the new project. Both projects are all hard and angry and then frustrated and even sad: it's real ass rock music. The visual of two men inseparable for life isn't lost on me as a metaphor for the success bestowed on Paris Texas but maybe not individually on Louie or Felix. I don't think this is a breakup album (as the ending of the shorts might suggest), but rather a very polished dual project after years spent in the studio polishing both individual craft and shared vision. The albums themselves spiritually feel like an acknowledgment of many contradictions: medieval swords on a carpet floor, production that hits hard and soft, and rappers who probably don't need a talking gun.
