Open Mike Eagle, Serengeti, Video Dave

“I’m gettin’ too old. My first album title might’ve been too bold.” The sharper Open Mike Eagle’s rhymes, the deeper wounds gouge into his psyche. That creative tension – steadily mounting across a decade of Unapologetic Art Rap, title of that debut LP – forms the hella-meta bedrock for the L.A.-based multi-hyphenate’s terrific new record, a tape called component system with the auto reverse. Across haunted, crackling sound loops like disintegrating cassettes, the never-wearier Eagle examines the toll of a career built on brilliantly tearing himself down. Openers are longtime associates from his hometown Chicago, Serengeti and Video Dave. – Julian Towers