Artist: Sadistik
Album: Haunted Gardens
Listen:
YouTube
Spotify
Apple Music
Background by /u/TheNTSocial
Sadistik hails from gloomy Seattle but bases himself in LA these days. He came onto the indie rap scene with his debut LP The Balancing Act in 2008, and since then has refined himself into one of the most technically skilled rappers around while still rooting his music in bleak but visceral imagery and explorations of pain in various forms. His aesthetic may not be for everyone, but his abilities as a rapper are undeniable, and if his themes resonate with you, he's likely to shoot up near the top of your list of favorite rappers.
Sadistik is a true indie artist, and even as his fifth full length solo album (with many EPs in between), Haunted Gardens was entirely self-released, with no record label or publicist behind it. Sadistik is very deliberate about the themes and aesthetic of his albums, and after 2017's dark, aggressive, and misanthropic Altars, Sadistik set out to create a somber, haunting, but beautiful album in Haunted Gardens. On Altars, Sadistik lashed out at the world, while on Haunted Gardens, he is turning inward to find some beauty in the wake of darkness.
If you haven't heard Sadistik before, I recommend giving Eden a listen, and then diving into the rest of Haunted Gardens.
Review by /u/TheNTSocial
In his last lines on his previous LP Altars, Sadistik laments the cruel, dishonest, and lonely state of our world:
They told us we could be anything
They always lie through their teeth
They told us we could chase any dream
And then we died in our sleep.
Sadistik isn't here to refute that bleak outlook on Haunted Gardens. He is still recoiling from a sinister and malevolent world, which he personifies on "8 ½":
The more I see the morbid scenes
The more I seem like Morrissey
I'm moored at sea and mortified
With these boulders tied to dormant feet
We're born inside a storm that breathes
A swarm of bees protects me
I feel empty yet I force my teeth.
Instead, having accepted that his life has no external meaning, Sadistik seeks to give it meaning himself, and create something beautiful from his pain. These themes of the album are most clearly laid out on "Saints", where Sadistik raps over a rising violin in the instrumental,
Take the grey I find
And maybe I can make it light up now
Lately I admire how
You make things seem lively when I'm dying out
Words are like a spiderweb, I'm spiral bound
My la fleur, planting haunted gardens
Where the scars are formed
Pluck my heart like harpsichords
Till one of ours is washed ashore
The production across Haunted Gardens is haunting, ethereal, and gorgeous, and perfectly drives the lyrical themes of somberly finding beauty in the wake of suffering. The overall sound of the album is remarkably cohesive, given that there are 15 producers across 13 tracks, a fact which reflects Sadistik's attention to detail in exercising creative control over every aspect of his albums, from his own rapping to production and artwork. There are also no vocal features on this album, which is fitting, as Haunted Gardens is a deeply personal record. Sadistik also raps his ass off for the entire record, showcasing a myriad of flows and incredible rhyming and wordplay.
Haunted Gardens opens with the somber and gentle "All My Poisons Sit in Frames", and Sadistik immediately sets the tone for the album
Parents die, beauty dies
Blue insides, suicide
Death will come for you and I
While I'm not sure any album opener will ever again be as impactful as Altars' "Voodoo Dali", "All My Poisons Sit in Frames" is a fitting first track which sets the mood and begins to lay down the soundscape for the album.
The pace then picks up dramatically with the harrowing but energetic "Eden", a standout track and the album's first single. Sadistik's flow on this track is incredible, and the incessant pace of his rapping combined with the constantly evolving production almost make you feel like you're free falling through the atmosphere, a feeling which Sadistik evokes in the lyrics
I'm better off dead, the weather is never enough
When effervescent second efforts get me left in the mud
Just up above us is a galaxy, grounds all crumble below me
A thousand people surround us, inside of me's only lonely
The fireflies used to visit to sit on my skin, I miss it
When mystery dissipated, you drifted into the distance.
"Eden" also begins the dive into the album's recurring theme of codependency:
All the trees are neon, I see while I dream I'm free
And I'm beyond the reach of reason, to be or just not to be
I feel empty when you're not with me, I've seen all the scenery
Out to sea on a peace you left me, I'm ready to sink beneath
These lyrics highlight the ephemeral nature of Sadistik's happiness: he may find beauty in his relationships with the people around him, but those people will all die someday, and some of them will leave his life long before then. Sadistik reminds us of this fact in the blunt closing lines of the following track, "8 ½"
Every living thing I'll ever know is temporary
I can never give up being left alone until I'm buried.
Nevertheless, Sadistik finds empowerment in this fleetingness of life's pleasures: everything is going to be gone one day, so all we can do is try to enjoy and find meaning in what we have now. He iterates this on "Eden" with the lines
You look into my nucleus
Tell me I'm too lugubrious, beautiful views elusive
We planted our darkest secrets, they're blooming into petunias.
"8 ½" is another standout track, featuring Sadistik switching up his flow multiple times, gliding over beat changes in the stellar production by Televangel, formerly one half of Seattle production duo Blue Sky Black Death. The lyrics touch on a recurring theme in Sadistik's music, the drive to constantly reinvent one's self, often captured in metaphor as dying and being reborn:
Thought I told you I'm a beast,
All I do is die, repeat
I piece together puzzles pieces
Of my youth to find release
[…]
These seasons seldom change
I'm rearranging with the furniture
She always sees the best in me,
I focus on the worst in her.
The grandiose and powerful "8 ½" gives way to the somber and resigned "Burning Lakes", on the hook of which Sadistik gently sings
Today I'm dirty, tomorrow I'll be dirt I know
I wake up early and wobble from the vertigo
The lakes are burning, I know I'll be first to go
I live and die every day, I'm so versatile,
peacefully accepting the inevitability of his death and again exploring reinventing himself as a way to cope with the world. "Burning Lakes" is followed by "Daisies", perhaps the album's most aggressive track which finds Sadistik facing death head on in an incredible display of rapping on the second verse
Disembark, disemboweled, this is how I'll kiss the stars
I'm picking flowers, now I'm in a garden
Reminiscing, been this way since kindergarten
Wonder why this kid's so guarded
I don't wanna live like this, I'm guilty, dehumanized
Everybody's waiting to get euthanized
The youth in eyes got replaced with the suicide
Pacts you survived and a past that you beautified
A death sentence for the crucified
From best friends to the eulogized
Buried with the peasants putrefied
Staring at reflections you admired
Nooses tied reminding me I'm dying every second I'm alive
Sadistik emphasizes that this is not just his fate, but everyone's, in the closing lines
Look at what becomes of the mighty
Calm on the come down but nothing's inside
Except the daisies
Again, Sadistik says, at the end there is no meaning to our lives except the fleeting instances of beauty we create for ourselves, symbolized as flowers here and elsewhere in the album. In the refrain, Sadistik raps "The piss still makes the daisies grow", reminding us that this fleeting beauty can eventually arise from even the darkest parts of our lives.
The explosiveness of "Daisies" is followed by the more controlled, measured "Man's Best Friend", which features gorgeous production brought to life by vibrant strings and a haunting vocal chorus ushering in a beat switch midway through. Sadistik's delivery in the first verse is measured, deliberate, and powerful, and in the second verse explosive and emotional. Sadistik again laments the fleeting nature of our relationships, this time over a passed dog of his
I remember like yesterday when
Your body burned but the ember's stayed
It's only cold since you went away
My skull is so full of empty space.
But again, in the same track Sadistik celebrates our power to grow and build meaning from loss
"Never left" etched in my flesh, X-X on my eyes
Excess stress expressed in a star scape
Wrote a love letter, got a death threat tar-laced
Made best friends with the marks that the scars make
[…]
I stay in the nadir with stains on my saber
To kill what I feel, all the pain and the anger, and so forth
Now rain on me please so I can grow more.
"Alcoves" is a welcome and somber interlude after the explosive second verses of "Daisies" and "Man's Best Friend". The highlight of the next track "Coals" is the cold and apathetic chorus
I feel like I'm walking on these coals and I'm so burnt
I feel like the boredom's all I know when I'm sober.
"Sistine Chapel" is another standout, a beautiful love song celebrating the divinity of Sadistik's girlfriend, with Sadistik's flow effortlessly evolving and weaving around the instrumental. The hook is a gorgeous and emotional back-and-forth between the female vocal sample and Sadistik
(I want you more than I need you)
I swear to God I do!
(I need you so bad)
I see the God in you!
(Are you coming back, are you coming back?)
I swear to God I do!
(I'm waiting…)
and the crescendo in the second verse is incredible, as desperation builds in his voice leading up to his final declaration
I'm only human, you're only better
I'm soaked in fuel, you float with feathers
A holy product, I'm Onibaba
You're Sistine Chapel, show me god!
Sadistik's characteristic dark touch underlies this love song: the beauty of his relationship does not undo the painful experiences in his life, but does soften and liven his present experience.
The most uplifting song in the album in "Sistine Chapel" is followed by the morbid "Gallows Hill", an anthem for Sadistik's cult following. With a wavy flow and tongue-twisting lyrics, Sadistik expresses his distrust for those who fit into a lofty place in society without having experienced life's hardships, building up to the chorus where he lays out his allegiances "If you float then you're a witch/If you drown you're one of us..." Sadistik also reiterates his distrust for those who use religion to find meaning in their lives rather than creating it for themselves with lines like "Taste the Krocodil, imposter prophets often kill for profits too" and "Pulling pistols on Episcopalians with scaly lips".
The next track "Koi" is a heart-wrenching dedication to Sadistik's late father, to whom Sadistik's second LP Flowers For My Father was also dedicated. This track features Sadistik's pain at its barest, and his lyrics are simple but piercing:
Your scent lingers like orange peels
It's still your face when I see reflections
It cuts me open like koi gills
Underneath the mask is flammable like an oil field, still
I miss the sausage egg McMuffins
You got me on my birthday to watch my face adjustments
Father's Days, holidays and functions
The days before I got afraid
"Koi" is the album's most personal and impactful reminder that our relationships, however cherished, are fundamentally temporary.
The second to last track "Saints" is another standout, and together with "Eden" one of the album's singles. Sadistik switches up his flow several times on "Saints" over a knockout beat featuring a beautiful live recorded violin adding to the swell of emotion in the second verse. This track touches on all the biggest themes of the album: finding beauty in the wake of darkness, codependency, rejecting religion.
Sadistik's relationship with religion was central to his previous album Altars, and it's still intimately linked to Haunted Gardens' themes of creating one's own beauty and meaning in life. Sadistik paints losing his religion as illusion-shattering: simultaneously painful and empowering. He describes his search for meaning without religion in the haunting closing track "From the Gossamer"
And ever since that day I saw my god upon a stretcher
I followed all mirages while I'd fall apart in increments
And crawled across the desert just to talk to all the string puppets
Suffered through the small talk, blanket statements, small pox
I'm sinking and my corpse is always covered in your fingerprints
I dream I'm in Elysium but wake up to the same
The rapping on the album ends with those lines, giving way to Sadistik's gentle singing in the background,
I see the light in your sullen eyes and
I'll protect you from the world if I can
We were meant for a normal life…
He never suggests that he has stopped "following mirages" to search for that meaning. Rather, Haunted Gardens makes it clear that that search is the meaning, a constant journey of discovery, of loss, of reinventing one's self, and of planting one's own meaning and beauty.
Haunted Gardens only competes for the title of my favorite album of all time with Sadistik's 2017 LP Altars. Altars is longer and showcases more evolution of Sadistik's perspective on the world over the course of the album, while Haunted Gardens is more narrowly focused. At 33 minutes long, Haunted Gardens never overstays its welcome, and is the perfect length to deliver its message beautifully, and succinctly, while still leaving you wishing for more of the album's ethereal, atmospheric production and Sadistik's incredible rapping.
Favorite Lyrics by /u/TheNTSocial
You wander for your escape and I'll still mistake it for always
The long days of this malaise made me patient amidst the cobwebs
And mister melancholy calling turned holidays into hollow days
"Eden"
Thought I had it all, thought I'd live forever
Thought the world was small, thought my words could turn to gold
I knew what I was searching for
I thought that I was thoughtless
Thoughts of mine were arsenic
Our hollow parts are toxic
How'd our heart-to-hearts get arctic?
"8 ½"
Until the earth is swallowed, hollering
How low can I get today?
Dark so it's like Halloween
Dark Souls with the hollowing
"8 ½"
I'm under the weather, been running forever
Becoming a martyr for nothing
My garden's still covered in mud
From the dahlias plucked in abundance
Apartment's a bucket of blood
I'm partly to blame when I'm placing the blame
On the ones that I love
"8 ½"
You are art like Artemis, flowing through my arteries
I was not the architect, but still you are a part of me
Apart from seeking out a séance, saying I could part the seas
See, I am your apostle, I won't jostle with apostacy
"Sistine Chapel"
I've burned alive, arsoned the sinner
And since ascended, too sick of winter
We left kissed the trigger from sips to benders
We spent December alone together
I'm only human, you're only better
I'm soaked in fuel, you float with feathers
A holy product, I'm Onibaba
You're Sistine Chapel, show me God!
"Sistine Chapel"
A message in a bottle
Lessons that I etched as a staccato
I go Hattori Hanzo with the gonzo
Until I fill the hollows
"Saints"
Innocent to diffident
Indifferent to the dissonance
Drifting in and out of indolence
Indecent and still in descent
Disparate makes desperate
I'm distant when I ponder on the infinite
Walk along the precipice
"Saints"
I'm pantomiming death to stay afloat when I'm not with you
Trapped in spiderweb blankets woven from the gossamer
I made my manias change into azaleas
That bloomed from all the wounds I never knew that you could save me from"
"From the Gossamer"
Singing rhapsodies of peace, pieces of me atrophied
A shattered galaxy, we were at an apogee
A masterpiece reminding me of things I had but cannot be
Dear depression, you robbed me of my essence,
Taught me that I'm ugly with autopsies of my efforts
"From the Gossamer"
Talking Points
Favorite songs/lyrics?
Does the album's central theme of finding beauty in the wake of darkness resonate with you?
Is there some danger in the potential of music like this to contribute to romanticizing codependency and depression, beyond providing an outlet for artists and listeners to express and process pain?
Sadistik often puts religion at odds with personal freedom, empowerment, and responsibility. Is this dichotomy appropriate? How much room does religion leave for people to build their own meaning?
Sadistik is very deliberate and involved in every step of the process in creating his albums, from the production to the artwork to the music videos. How much does the artwork and aesthetic surrounding an album influence your experience of it?
I'm very interested to hear opinions from people to haven't listen to Sadistik (or at least not much) before. In my opinion, he's one of the best rappers out there, and certainly the most underrated.
