By: Olivia Thoelke

Milwaukee Banks, the self-proclaimed “antipodean answer to the new school of future rap,” are a cloud rap duo, consisting of producer Edo and rapper Dyl Thomas, hailing from Melbourne, Australia. Influenced by electronic minimalists, cloud rap aesthetic, and southern hip hop beats, their resulting sound is mellowed-out, dream-like, hypnotic, and pays homage to everything a cloud rap fan could expect.

The duo’s first EP, Rose Water was posted on their Sound Cloud in June, and just recently became available on iTunes. The six tracks on this EP flow together in surreal, bass-heavy beats, paired with dreamy lyricism. Rose Water as a whole reminds me of a happy medium between early A$AP Rocky and Yung Lean; the sound is more mellowed out that A$AP, but has more of a put-together sound than the famous, but controversial “slack rapping” Lean is known for.

The first track on this album, “Pluto Bounce,” is accompanied by a really cool, avant-garde style music video that really showcases their surreal style, and is one of my favorite tracks on the EP. The harmonic melody, heavy bass, and the super low pitch accompanies rapping from the Australian accent-heavy Dyl, who is going on “jellybean colored socks” in the surrealist manner that is really only found in this genre of hip-hop. Other tracks on the EP such as “Hazy” stick out to me melodically, but all six of the tracks on the album are pretty similar. “Sweater Made Of Gold,” the third track on the album, is another favorite track of mine, sticking out with its impeccably crafted, almost far east sounding electronica. The lyricism throughout the album is sometimes simply nonsense, sometimes tounge-in-cheek humor (“I order her some shots… I hit the toilet for a squat”), but remains very unique. Milwaukee Banks’ druggy, head-bopping sound is making its way to be one of the pioneers for cloud rap, and I’m eager to see what their next project will sound like.

Olivia is a freshman journalism major from St. Louis who doesn’t go a day without listening to music. She enjoys making bad jokes, quoting Quentin Tarantino movies, and eating pizza