Vanisher, Horizon Scraper by Quadeca: Album Review
"how do I make this not sound like I'm on a pirate ship" ahh production
The evolution of Quadeca’s music is like that one meme where Jensen Huang’s LinkedIn goes from “Denny’s busboy” to “Founder of NVIDIA,” except that significantly less finance bros find it funny. The most popular video on his channel is still his KSI diss track, which is hilarious because it means that the Jesus and Satan of the online music community were engulfed in a rap beef 6 years ago.
Quadeca used to be known for imitating other rappers, which kind of gives the impression that his musical ceiling would be a mid-tier trap artist at best. For him to drop this, where the production on every song feels grand and cinematic with complex instrumentals and orchestral breaks, where the lyrics capture raw yet incredibly nuanced emotions, and where the mood is so firm yet no two songs sound the same, would be if like Bronny James suddenly went All-NBA.
The instrumentals here are what immediately stand out. If it wasn’t already obvious that Quadeca loves to showcase his producing abilities, the first song is basically just an instrumental with barely any lyrics, the ninth song is an instrumental with zero lyrics, and the final song finishes off with two minutes of straight violent drums that are so loud but sound so beautiful.
If you think about this album in a vacuum, these choices are a bit weird, because the intro instrumental and the ninth song (“I DREAM ABOUT SINKING”) aren’t that beautiful on their own. If you want to include a song with no words on an album where everything else has lyrics, they have to be Beethoven symphony-level good to be on par with the rest of the album, especially when the rest of your album is this good.
But when you realize that this album is basically the accompanying soundtrack to a movie: a movie about an adventurous sailor who hops between islands, fights monsters on the open sea, and—SPOILER ALERT—drowns in the end, it kind of makes sense as a sort of tone-setting for the story. “I DREAM ABOUT SINKING” is supposed to act as a hallucination for the sailor’s eventual demise, previewing the emotion of unexpected calm he feels when he meets his fate.
The first traditional “song” we get on this album is “WAGING WAR,” which is our introduction to this theme of death. It, of courses, poses it through a sailor’s eyes: at the end of his journey, if he simply was a body that washed ashore, what would he have become? What emotions and ideas should he use to approach death?
Who am I to the closing door that's been keeping score?
Who am I when the motion stops and I can't ignore?
Who am I when the light is low, and there's no horizon?
Who am I when I wash ashore? I can't visualize it
The chaotic distortion in the second half of the song is a great auditory representation of his jumbled thoughts. It directly assumes the perspective of a depression-struck individual, questioning birth, death, and vulnerability.
The next song, “RUIN MY LIFE,” is significantly more tranquil than its predecessor. The title originates from the line “I might have to ruin my life to make it mine,” the idea that to gain his own freedom, the sailor must embark on a precarious, life-threatening journey. The bridge from this mystery British man follow up by that incredible drum solo is the track’s most memorable section. It places this track in a club of many songs on this album that take a long time to build up, but have immensely satisfying payouts when they reach their climax.
“GODSTAINED” is a song that has been on repeat for me for the past week. It recounts the sailor’s discovery of a message in a bottle that reminds him of a past love. The immense distance this bottle must have traveled in the sea inspires the sailor in his feeling that he would stop at nothing to get back to what he lost.
I thought you knew
No matter how much I feel like the paper and plastic
I could still find a way to get back to you (To you, to you)
'Cause I thought you knew (You knew, you knew)
Comin' back home, I'll be there a little bit slower
Don't you see that I'll never get over you?
This is by far my favorite instrumental on the album and gets paired with some incredible lyricism. The production has such a soothing yet melancholic feeling to it that I don’t think any other song I’ve ever listened to evoked. This is probably one of the only songs on the project where I like the beginning portion more than the outro, but it is consistent enough throughout to be a perfect track for me.
“AT A TIME LIKE THIS” is a song that starts upbeat but gets gradually more distorted as its runtime goes on. In the album’s storyline, this is the point where the sailor meets an old man and suddenly feels more apprehensive and fearful than ever about the idea of dying. Flashbacks to his childhood are juxtaposed with the concern of dying and being forgotten to time. It’s a very heavy yet accessible track.
“MONDAY” is probably the most sea shanty-sounding song in an album full of aquatic motifs. It has this very outwardly bright instrumental and upbeat vocals. The idea of “Monday” in this song represents a wish for perseverance and preservation, to last until the end of the week instead of throwing in the towel at the beginning.
Darling, don't you give up on a Monday
I wanna tell you I want you
You might've took it the wrong way
God, I'm losing my grip on the runway
I wanna get there with you now
This time I'll take you the long way (Mhm)
It’s a consistently good track, but it lacks the wow factor, instrumental diversity, and symphonic quality that make the rest of the tracks on this album so special.
I absolutely love “DANCING WITHOUT MOVING.” It’s the grooviest song off the project, complete with repeated words in the chorus to give it a more dance-appropriate rhythm. The way so many different elements combine in the verses and chorus while keeping the same sonic motifs is incredible. Each section of this track sounds different, yet they are each enjoyable in their own ways.
The fact that Quadeca talks about the movements of the night sky here is so interesting, because it touches on a theme that I had to write about ad nauseam in my AP Spanish Literature class: the linear passage of time in contrast with the cyclical patterns of nature. The sky moves in a constant cycle, yet the sailor’s romantic frustration leaves him frozen even in the wake of nature’s stirrings.
I look to the night sky
To copy what I do
It's dancing, but it cannot move
“THAT’S WHY” is probably my least favorite track on the album. This is surprising, since my image of Quadeca was always as a rapper first, yet I like the most rap-adjacent song on the album the least. The production just doesn’t do much for me, and I think the repetition of “that’s why” on the first half of the song paired with the odd flow of the bars gets a bit annoying.
“NATURAL CAUSES” centers around the idea of inevitable doom. The chorus, which centers around the week-long timeline of sailors dying on a boat,
Somebody died on Monday
All of 'em died by Thursday (Thursday)
is meant to be a micro-representation of human life. Some people die early and young, but even those lucky enough to survive have to die eventually. It’s an implicit justification for the sailor’s choice to voluntarily place himself in danger. The lyrics and concept are great, the production is a bit forgettable though.
“THUNDRRR” is remarkably interesting. It’s the song that reminds me most of his previous project, “Scrapyard,” with its aggressive instrumental and vocal delivery. It varies significantly in style from the rest of the album, where a lot of songs have a sort of mysterious quality to it reminiscent of a lot of ambient music.
The lyricism and story here is very Greek myth-esque, with the sailor seemingly challenging divine forces in a way that provokes the confrontation we will see in the next song. I think this is a track where the production is so good that the lyrics take a back seat, but they’re not to be ignored even with that considered.
“THE GREAT BAKUNAWA” is really funny because it has experimental rap extraordinaire Danny Brown literally become the Philippine equivalent of the Kraken, which is just an objectively funny concept. We see the sailor be put in check for his overconfident thoughts on the previous song, but still ready to accept the challenge. This truly does feel like some sort of showdown—the tone is set incredibly well.
“FORGONE” is where the songs really start feeling like spectacles. This track (like album’s outro that follows it) is seven minutes long, and all seven minutes act as a heartfelt tribute to his former lover with a significant focus on youth a la “Ivy,” “hope ur ok,” or “BLUE.” (damn, I guess this theme gets used a lot).
Forgone, I see the child that she once was
Holding me tight like her teddy bear
I'm still a child in the same vein
And all I can do is remain
In this song, Quadeca really showcases a masterclass of production. There are so many instruments active at once, with more getting gradually added as the song progresses. It is so entertaining to see the song evolve and morph through several different musical themes, even if the last two minutes are a bit weaker than the rest.
“CASPER” is the perfect song to end the album. Since the album has spent so many minutes already foreshadowing the sailor’s death, if the song where he actually died was a flop, it would be such a huge stain on the whole project. Thankfully, the track is amazing. It starts off with the darkest intro of all fourteen songs.
It is basically a retrospective on the sailor’s whole life, from the moment he was born to the moment he is destined to die at his “home,” in the chaotic waters of the ocean. Even though I didn’t really like the vocals on the opener, “NO QUESTIONS ASKED,” the fact that the same vocals come back here to round out the album is an incredible payoff for all the foreshadowing and buildup.
Finally, this review wouldn’t be complete without a full discussion on that amazing drum solo closer. They slowly get louder and louder, eventually drowning out Maruja’s voice in a chaotic mix of distortion. Even though it’s a chaotic way for the sailor to die, there seems to be some brightness in that chaos as the sailor accepts that his journey was all worth it, an emotion perfectly represented by the outro.
All of my favorite albums are LPs that are not only a collection of great individual songs, but are also able to weave those songs together into a beautiful narrative that is greater than the mere sum of its parts. Vanisher, Horizon Scraper is a project that’s able to make me feel the emotions I felt listening to good kid, m.A.A.D. city or Igor after I finally pieced together their full storylines. That’s an impressive accomplishment, made even more awe-inspiring by the way Quadeca keeps innovating in production with some absolutely beautiful-sounding instrumentals.
Even after all that, this album truly taught me patience. So many of the tracks on here take a long time to build up, but it is a very worthwhile wait as their loud peaks are beautiful expansions of the basic musical themes that first opened those tracks. This really feels like Quadeca’s magnum opus, as he showcases his immense talent for writing, storytelling, and instrumentation all in one.
Rating: 9.0/10
Favorites:
GODSTAINED
DANCING WITHOUT MOVING
CASPER
Individual Track Ratings:
