Detroit MC Danny Brown continues to sidle up rap’s Mount Rushmore on his own unpredictable path. The title hat-tips both Joy Division and the continuing “freakshow” of Brown’s drug-interrupted existence, which he inspects, fascinated, with a singular combination of scouring honesty, irrepressible intelligence and barely concealed horror. Downward Spiral introduces more tales of everyday psychosis, made mesmerising by Brown’s strung-out yelp, riper than month-old Époisses. He has boasted that he can rap over two pots scraping together, and on Pneumonia’s hypnotic metalwork symphony he proves it. Even beatless red-eyed Cypress Hill lullaby Get Hi is somehow brilliant. Normally you’d change carriages to avoid someone sounding this unhinged, but the 15 dosages Brown dispenses here are worryingly addictive.
