Typically, threepeats happen over a period of three years. But like some personal deep dish pizza, TREE is slicing that time frame in sixths, with this, his third championship-worthy release in just six months.
Mixed metaphors notwithstanding, following January’s Nothing Is Something and March’s We Grown Now. the Chicago soultrap pioneer returns May 31 with The Wild End, a full-length collaboration with New Jersey-based producers Parallel Thought.
For those unfamiliar, Parallel Thought is the production duo comprised of Adam Calman and Jeff Blacker, known for their stylistically boundless, yet consistenly immersive work with the likes of Bentley, Gene the Southern Child, Del the Funky Homo Sapien and Tame “Da Ol’ Jersey Bastard” One among others.
Titled The Wild End after TREE’s old Cabrini Green stomping grounds, this album promises to be remarkable not only for the collaboration, but also for its historic and artistic significance. Per the Bandcamp description, the above album cover photo, showing a young TREE, “was originally taken in July 1988 by famed Chicago photographer Marc PoKempner as part of the Changing Chicago Documentary Project” and “had been hanging in The Art Institute of Chicago for over a decade until a search for album art led to it’s re-discovery.”
The album will be released on limited vinyl via De Rap Winkel Records, making it the third TREE release on wax (after 2014’s Sunday School II and @MCTREEG EP). The album’s first single, “No Love,” is streaming below. Look for another one soon and click through to Bandcamp to pre-order the digital version or scope the various colored vinyl pressings.
The Wild End tracklisting:
01. God Like
02. Double DD’s
03. Some Kinda Love
04. On My Own
05. Hooters
06. On N On
07. This Money
08. $200
09. No Love
10. Who I Am
More about: Parallel Thought, Tree
