Formally known as 'Caper', Col Darcy re-emerges with new record 'Beautiful Hopeless'.
A landmark moment in his creative journey and a solidified introduction to a new era, Beautiful Hopeless is the new album from Melbourne-via-South Australia-based rapper and producer Col Darcy.
Previously creating music under the moniker Caper, now more than 20 years into his career, the rapper has reinvented himself and re-emerged with his given name Col (Colin) Darcy, truly offering him his moment to shine.
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“I’ve been under the name Caper for the past 20 years. It was just time to retire the name like a sports guernsey and come back with a fresh start. I wanted to reinvent myself with a more refined sound, storey and perspective on life,” Darcy explains.
“I thought the best way to do it is to give people more of me by having my real name and presenting it with my latest honest narrative in ‘Beautiful Hopeless’.”
Released in November, Beautiful Hopeless sees Darcy continue his knack for Lo-Fi production as he exposes his vulnerabilities into a 17-track art form, with each song providing an emotive and raw insight into what drives his creativity.
Using music as a therapeutic outlet, the soothing, stirring album sees Darcy dive into the deeply intimate and haunting depths of himself, centring around feelings of hopelessness from Darcy’s experiences in facing challenging adversities and painful loss.
“My whole journey started with me just writing poetry to talk about my life’s tragedies as a form of expression. Eventually, I turned the poetry into songs. Themes have been around my own experiences of loss because I faced a lot of them throughout life.
“On Beautiful Hopeless, I captured a period involving my flaws and feelings of hopelessness. And the album now becomes like a mirror for me to really take a good look at myself and try to understand my feelings and what I’m saying.
“Hip Hop itself came from the struggle and I love that aspect the most about the music. Because it speaks, inspires and moves people like me to help them get through life. I hope my music has that same effect on people.”
A deeply intimate record, Darcy’s Beautiful Hopeless finds an eerily soothing, stirring comfort in the gloom and sorrow, spawned from trauma, resurfaced pain and a sense of hopelessness of the artist losing his dog and best friend Jakey.
The result of six months of reflecting, writing and recording, the record goes on to reflect Darcy’s journey of moving from Adelaide to Melbourne to pursue music, work in a new 9-5 job while trying to find my purpose and keep my relationship intact: at times it felt beautiful while other times Darcy felt hopeless.
“I created seven albums in the past two years after quitting my 9 to 5 and grew this crazy work ethic that had me really burnt out afterwards. When it came time to mix and master the album four months after I moved states, I couldn’t remember recording all 17 songs,” Darcy explains.
“I had lost someone very close to me so it was a pretty tough time and it’s probably why it’s so vague. When I record, I just pull up a beat and listen to see what it’s telling me, and then I write to whatever emotion comes and then lay it down on the microphone. Recording Beautiful Hopeless was a coping tool to vent in times of feeling hopeless from facing challenging adversities.”
Entirely self-recorded and self-produced, the record is a 49-minute indulgence of achingly raw hip hop, from the tender opener ‘Run Away’, to the bittersweet beauty of ‘Jakey’ and the cinematic and immersive title track. Beautiful Hopeless is atmospheric and wistful, intensely emotive and ever-so-slightly ethereal as Darcy mixes his vocals and deep misery and grief with delays, echos and vocal manipulation.
“‘Jakey’ is one of my favourites [tracks] because of what he meant to me; I tell his storey of adversity to love. It pays tribute to the unconditional love he gave and his journey from abandonment to finding a home and his mother and then finding his father, me,” Darcy explains.
“Another favourite is ‘Inner Peace’ because of its rawness and vibe. It’s a song about yearning for change and inner peace.”
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Influenced by the likes of Kota The Friend, Mick Jenkins, Kendrick Lamar, Homeboy Sandman, Vince Staples and Tyler The Creator, musically Beautiful Hopeless sees Darcy’s hypnotic rhymes complement perfectly the warm bassy, organic beats. Embracing a moody, captivating melodic sonic template throughout, Darcy’s lyrics swirl around a sweet Lo-Fi/Trap Soul concoction of pianos, synths, guitars and trumpets, resulting in an album that’s as raw and revealing as it is mystifying.
By the end of the first listen, it’s evident Beautiful Hopeless intent of inspiring us all to bask in the hopelessness; to find comfort in the beauty of life and all its parts.
“Life has its ups and downs and can be beautiful and hopeless. I hope they [listeners] take away something positive. I hope they can hear the importance of controlling the ego and training it to acknowledge flaws and own them. I hope it empowers people to express what they feel instead of keeping their truths and flaws buried.
“Nobody’s perfect, we’ve all got flaws. We all can find beauty in the struggle.”
With his latest record, Col Darcy has truly mastered his genre, with some genuinely well-crafted verses that aren’t quite like anything else currently making the rounds.
Championed by effortless lyrical flow, immersive beats, experimental soundscapes and entrancing Lo-Fi production, Beautiful Hopeless is truly thought-provoking and heartfelt hip hop, so much so that at times feels like Col Darcy is throwing rhymes over his own heartbeat.
Stream Beautiful Hopeless on Spotify here.
