Queensland hip hop legends Lane-Harry X Ike Campbell have just dropped their new LP titled RENAISSANCE. Having toured with 360, released the video and killer new single ‘No More’ and then followed up with RENAISSANCE the duo are showing no signs of slowing.
RENAISSANCE is influenced by contemporaries Kanye West, Childish Gambino, Monophonics and Dwele and offers a far more delicate and pop approach in comparison to their hard-hitting first single ‘Anarchy.’
With the release of RENAISSANCE, the sonic diversity we’re seeing is some of the most exciting local hip hop we have heard all year. To celebrate the release of this impressive album, the guys have given us a track by track run down of the LP, check it out below and for more info on the duo visit their Facebook page, and be sure to catch the guys on the road at the following shows.
Sauvignon
We wanted to open the album with an absolute banger. Something that hits you hard whether you’re listening to it in your car or your headphones or at a festival. This is probably the most new school Hip-Hop song on the album. We were really influenced by artists like Kanye West, Big Sean and Travi$ Scott on this one. The song is the theme song for the wild times we have with our friends.
Anarchy
Anarchy was the first taste of the album we gave to the public. We were lucky enough to have Channel [V] launch the video. The song is the sound of frustration, it was a time where I felt as though the leaders of our country didn’t represent the people in it.
Ike and I had toured all over Australia at this point and had met so many different people from all sorts of backgrounds and none of them felt like we we’re moving forward in a positive way as a nation. I wrote this song vicariously through the people we encountered on tour. I fantasized about how massive uproars and riots would change the currents of the country. This album is essentially theme songs for different themes, this was angst.
No More
I was dating this one girl for years and was properly in love with her. I honestly thought I was always going to be with her but she had aspirations for such a normal life, that 9-5 middle-class husband wife duo with the two kids, that was her dream. It got to the point where she said I could either continue music without her or quit music and be with her. I knew that if I quit music there would be a void that could never be filled. My favourite sound in the world is when an Instrumental from Ike fades out and is replaced by a screaming crowd. Ike made this beat and it was on my phone for quite a while and I was in a cab after a Thursday night out, just so drunk and I came up with the chorus melody and lyrics. Ike wrote his verse on a flight home from Japan I’m pretty sure.
Nymphomaniac
Nymphomaniac seems to be a fan favourite from the album. This song is so wild, I love playing it live. I wrote it around the time I was drinking way too much and going out every night and was just having these redundant one night stands. I’m a super intimate dude so I hate hooking up with girls at clubs but this song is about making the most of one night stands. It would be the most explicit song on the album for sure, maybe not language wise but definitely content wise.
Hentai
Hentai is my favourite song on the album. Kanye West talks about his song ‘Heard Em Say’ and how it was his favourite song from his second album because it sounds like something A Tribe Called Quest would make. Thats how I feel about this song, this is my proudest two minutes and 40 seconds.
The verses were all one take too, I just resonate with this beat and what I’m saying on this. This is my personal theme song. Aquila Young sounds amazing on the chorus of this too, she came into the studio never hearing the song or reading the lyrics and just absolutely nailed it after I directed her what to do, such a talent. The brilliant Tommy Sheehan co-produced the beat with Ike Campbell, the dudes are musical geniuses. So much happening in Hentai, great minds coming together.
Jack Torrance
I like to think I’m a pretty chill guy but there was a point last year where I really wasn’t chill. I felt really devalued as a rapper and started questioning my talent even after getting validation from some of my heroes.
It would’ve been Allday telling me that I couldn’t rap that did it, I’ve got no hard feelings towards the guy now, I haven’t spoken to him since then but at the time I wrote this I was not a fan of the scene at all. Sydney Morning Herald put out a “Best Australian Rappers” list and I wasn’t in it, that was really annoying, I don’t need validation from a newspaper but at the time it was just a massive blow, thats why theres the line “Saw your rapper list and I wasn’t impressed/Sydney Morning Herald got me shaking my head”
Mushroom Cloud
This is the oldest song on Renaissance, I think we made this in like February or March 2014. The sound is super influenced by Kanye West’s 808’s & Heartbreaks album, at first that was going to be the vibe we were going to go for on this album, a super melodic dreamy project but life kept handing us amazing experiences that inspired the songs on this album and drifted us away from the drowsy feel of Mushroom Cloud.
Do You Love It?
This song is about casually dating girls and then getting attached to them or vice versa. It’s always really difficult to communicate when a relationship is built on vanity. Theres a part of the song thats a compilation of voice mails of different girls I know, theres one girl Makayla who is acting in the voice mail when shes having a go at me but in reality right now in time she hates me so much. The girls from the ‘No More’ video are also in the mix of girls leaving messages in the song.
Basquiat
This is our experimental song. A six and a half minute multiple evolving section changing song about a girl overdosing on heroin told from a third and first point of view. Tommy Sheehan is featured on this and he sounds incredible, hands down one of the best singers in Australia and I’ve heard his new EP, I don’t know when its going to be released but when it does its going to change lives. Basquiat is definitely an acquired taste much like Jean-Michel Basquiat the painter who the song is named after. People I talk to about this song says that its the least instantly appealing song on the album but it grows on you the hardest over time.
Yachts
I can’t remember where I was but my phone was dead and I had no cash on me and $0 in the bank. I was far away from home and it was like three or 4am, the girl I was seeing at the time just bailed with some model dude and I felt like absolute shit. We had such an incredibly small following and I just felt like a failure. I thought back to the last time I felt that lost and it was when I was 10 years old. The reason I felt like that at 10 was because I was a fat kid who lost every race at school and my one wish was to be fast. I took the links between the way I felt at 19 and the way I felt at 10 and they became this song. Definitely the most emotional song on the album.
Medusa
I wrote the first verse of Medusa waiting in line at Auckland Airport, this is going to sound so creepy but in the line I saw the Jetstar girl checking in passengers and completely imagined me and her as an item and wrote a song about the daydream. She was so beautiful, I think her name was Megan. The second verse came from watching hours of cyphers on YouTube, Ike’s beat sounds like something that any world class rapper could spit something rad over. Would love to hear Childish Gambino on the second half of Medusa
Chequemate
Chequemate is about classism and how people get locked into wealth. This is from around the same time we made Mushroom Cloud so it has that dreamy vibe to the beat. Aquila Young is also on this chorus with her own songwriting, she contributed so much to this track. Its a banger but the lyrics are so powerful, I would be so stoked if people got lyrics from this song tattooed on them.
Church
I wrote Church after watching Wolf Of Wall Street. Its basically a retelling of Jordan Belford’s second marriage lifestyle with my own twist on it. There’s such an old man in a suit vibe to this, I want to hear this playing next time I go to the Yacht Club. We got Ike’s dad on the intro and we got our whole entourage of friends on the chorus, was hilarious having them all in the booth
Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here was a last minute addition to the album. It’s one of my favourites for sure. Ike singing the chorus sounds like some real old school Charlie Chaplin era singing, its brilliant. I was originally thinking of calling the song ‘Synthetic Ecstasy’ because it goes from this euphoric happiness to a real dark ending, the third verse of this song is an MD hangover. I saw Gone Girl the day we made this so the Amazing Amy reference at the end is so necessary.
Tomorrow
Theres something so appealing to me about being a rock star. I know Aldous Snow isn’t real but this song is the closest I’ve ever come to being Aldous Snow. A good mate of mine Tom from the band Baskervillian put this guitar sample in my possession and Ike Campbell turned it into a miracle. This is our most badass song.
Alpha Omega
Alpha Omega was always going to be the opening or closing track of the album. We have a word document with so many alternate track lists and this was always either #1 or #16. Kanye West is hands down our biggest influence and I feel as though of all our songs this is the one Yeezus would approve of the most. Kanye fans are really loving this track too which is a great feeling. Theres something so organic about this track, its really beautiful and lush. This is my second favourite song on the album after Hentai. The organ Ike plays at the end is the perfect way to close Renaissance.
