Plastique, the follow-up LP to Sole & the Skyrider Band’s debut of the same name, is Sole’s most cohesive, dynamic, listenable and interesting record to date. In contrast to the apocalyptic imagery of the first record, this album adopts the Jean Beaudrillard idea that “when the spectacle took over, man ceased to be man.” What’s more, Skyrider’s music finds itself more sparse and deliberate on this record.

The fact is the idea behind this album is less about politics and more about reflections on the postmodern mess that is the “me” generation. Sole bounces from the ironic to the iconoclastic, from the worldly to the deeply personal. Unlike many previous recordings, sole’s rapping is at the forefront and his lyrics are clearer than ever. This is partly thanks to more immaculately composed music, and partly to Son Lux collaborator Doc Harril on the mixing boards.

Sole has spent the last two years living in a cabin in the midst of the Coconino National Forest in Arizona with no mayor, no phone lines, broken cell phone reception, just books and environmental canyon sprawl. This return to analog life inspired much of the reflection found herein. Everywhere man goes he is in conflict, and such conflicts are found throughout the album: the interpersonal, the political, the anti-social, the city, the desert, the industries and the anti-ideologies wherever they are found. Sole touches on everything from touring in a recession, media and war, race, rap, wildlife, space, identity politics and the insane tightrope one must walk to talk about such issues without sounding like a book report.