In 2016, Rafael Lubner noted with surgical accuracy that Benjy Keating (a.k.a. Palmistry) “makes minimal pop music to maximal ends.” That truth has not wavered over the three years since Pagan, though Keating has been working head-down in Athens and in his secret lab at Mixpak, producing liquid tracks for big names in small-name hip-hop (with frequent collaborations, including his recent work with Triad God).
But really, it’s all been a part of a perfect-crime pop blueprint. As the pieces fall into place, we can now see that a new album, Afterlife, is on its way. And as if he didn’t already have us under his thumb, the skullduggerous Keating has nabbed a certain TMT-beloved human being named SOPHIE as a collaborator/co-conspirator on a new track available now. Maximal ends indeed…
“Water” is a track that sounds like — well… Keating’s restrained ethos dissolves easily into SOPHIE’s production: a universal solvent. It’s a 3-dimensional chess move, an untraceable neurotoxin.
Security systems be damned, Palmistry is already inside. He played us all like checkers, and there’s nothing left to be done but watch this twilight campaign unfurl, waiting patiently for this May, when Afterlife is destined to hit shelves via Mixpak.
