Tree – The @MCTreeG EP

Tree – The @MCTreeG EP
Scion AV: 2014

Tree’s Sunday School II: When Church Lets Out was not only one of last year’s finest hip-hop releases, but also one of the most unique. He further refined his signature “soul-trap” sound–a mixture of earthy chopped soul samples and booming low end. He also further fleshed out his atypical persona; a Chicago native, Tree consistently represents neither the city’s acid-gobbling suburban kids ala Chance the Rapper and Save Money, nor the dead-eyed street soldiers of the drill scene. Instead he comes across as a wizened, blue collar bar crawler, one who keeps the street present in his music but always at arm’s length, often content to explore much more relatable topics.

The @MCTreeG EP, a new EP released with Scion AV, sees the emcee continue down a similar lane, but makes a few tweaks that are surprisingly welcome given how quickly Tree has been able to fully realize such a rich sound. Though some of the project’s seven songs feel as if they are following a Sunday School template, Tree jettisons the scrappiness and warm, calculated sloppiness of his sample-based soul concoctions for something more paired down, electronic and straightforwardly melodic.

Weirdly, this short off-the-cuff EP feels more focused than either of his Sunday School projects, and while those two albums’ faded messiness were unquestionably part of what made them so great, this is actually a good look for Tree. His rapping and singing still sound great, and he’s polished up his fantastic Louis Armstrong yowl in to something well suited for the classy, sparse sounds of the EPs best, most interesting moments.

But even if some of the songs here feel a little more slick and polished, this is still beguilingly strange hip-hop. Opener “Probably Nu It” is perhaps one of the best songs Tree has attached his name to. Yet despite its welcoming warmth and insistent, endlessly listenable chorus, it’s still weird; the track consists of little more than a slow, plinky bass melody, rapid fire hi-hats and Tree’s soulful croon. “Like Whoa”, too, manages to milk a great, easily listenable rap song out of booming drums and a nagging, strangely festive four-note melody.

The songs that sound more like what you’d naturally expect from a new Tree release are no less satisfying; the soul-trap style feels like it has a lot of mileage left to spare. Appropriately, “Soul Trappin’/I Believe” is almost a pure distillation of this sound, seemingly designed to be played for someone who can’t quite grasp a description of it. Closer “God Like”, meanwhile, is a divine, beautiful jazz crawl.

Along with the slight sonic tweaks, Tree has also shifted his thematic focus here. There is little of the joyfulness of “Deliverance” or the laid-back, cocky cool of “No Faces”. Instead he delves further into explanations of character and story. He’s done this sort of thing before, but never quite as well as he does on @MCTreeG, with each of his character portraits occasionally flaring up with a gentle poignancy. It’s all in the details; the girl who strips, but only for long enough to pay back some money that she owes her grandmother for raising her; the young man starting out his first job who looks great in his first suit.

It’s short, but @MCTreeG reaffirms all of Tree’s best attributes. His incessant creativity as a producer, his ragged and soulful vocals, his considered lyrics. They are all here, which makes the EP feel less like the throwaway it could have been and more like an important stepping stone in a career that is shaping up to be extremely rewarding.

4 out of 5