In December, iconoclastic backpack rap pioneer Yasiin Bey teamed up with Los Angeles beat maker The Alchemist to release his first new music in five years via livestream. The success of the project led to the announcement that the duo had formed a group, Forensics, and were planning to release an album in 2025.
Today, they revealed the impending release date and details of the new album, which is named after the group. Like Money Christmas, FORENSICS will debut via livestream on the group’s Bandcamp page for $9.99 on February 7th at 9:00 PM CET (12:00 AM PST/3:00 AM EST). It’ll be available for replay for the next 48 hours; Vimeo will also host the replay for purchase. If you still have a hankering to play it after that, the duo expects to make it available for download toward spring, with a vinyl release after that.
According to the press release, FORENSICS marks a “new approach to delivering art, bringing together the experience of musical content with fashion, visual art, technology and community.” In addition to the stream, the group’s Bandcamp is selling merch featuring an NFC “Bump” tag, which fans can tap with their phones to unlock new album-related material, including an exclusive track, replay of the live stream video, and the album art, which was created by a friend of the group, Spanish-Moroccan artist Anuar Khalifi, titled The Weight of an Ant.
FORENSICS is out 2/7 via Bandcamp. You can purchase the stream and related merch here.
