Malci’s songs feel more like spasms. The Chicago rapper jerks from phrase to phrase with little regard for structure or pattern; the thrill of a track like “When They Get Me” comes when the ear captures — sometimes a beat too late — the precise moment when the meandering shifts into the miraculous. 

“I rap in all capitals,” Malci spits midway through the 90-second sprint that highlights his latest album, Papaya, but I’ll be a contrarian and say, well, not quite. He tosses capitals and other cases about these tracks with the free-associative abandon of a rapper who trusts his producer (i.e. himself) to do the necessary clean-up. The gyre widens, but the center somehow holds. 

That’s thanks to a collection of beats that lean on a collage of field recordings and round, wet synths to build a base that can withstand Malci’s sputtering vocal solos. The results often skew jazzy, though I don’t get the sense of an ensemble playing in hard-earned lockstep. Papaya is the product of a singular vision. Its lived-in messiness is its own and, like the growling dog on the album cover, it perpetually threatens to claw through the fence. 

Check out more from Malci on Bandcamp.