A couple of weeks ago the Difference Machine graced us with “Relax,” their first musical offering since 2017’s Triangle Schemes. And damn if it wasn’t everything we could’ve possibly hoped for. It wasn’t until I smashed play that I realized just how much I missed Dr. Conspiracy’s narcotic, four-in-the-morning funk and Day Tripper’s cosmic philosophizing. Dank beats and mind-expanding rhymes have forever been a winning formula and no one in the A does it quite like TDM. The only question was if it was a one-off single or the beginning of more to come.

As it turns out, we didn’t need to wait long for the answer. Last Friday, the group shared another psychoactive slapper featuring fellow traveler Allen Thomas. “Old Men” finds all parties involved at the peak of their extrasensory powers. Dr. Conspiracy’s Midas touch for merging old-school grit with fuzzed-out, hallucinatory canvases is still gold, and here he weaves an unsettling landscape that sounds like prime RZA coming off a three-day acid bender.

Naturally, it’s exactly the sort of disorienting atmosphere where Day Tripper does his best work. If conjuring murky backdrops is Conspiracy’s calling, it’s DT who serves as the guiding light in the wilderness. On “Old Men” he waxes poetic on modern anxiety, the crushing burden of debt, and old-timers who can’t leave the past behind. Still, he sees some hope for the future: “N****s getting smarter now, not much you can hide from us,” he raps in his closing bars. “Ride on the status quo that’s on the other side from us.”

Stepping into the TDM universe is no easy feat, but Allen Thomas is more than game. While DT’s razor-sharp flow cuts with surgical precision, Thomas weaves in and out of the beat like a boxer. His dexterous wordplay strikes from multiple angles, leaving the listener to wonder where the next body blow is going to come from. It all makes for a bonkers track, full of virtuosic rhymes and slurred, third-eye intensity.

With a third single dropping this morning via local hip-hop collective FULL PLATE, all signs are pointing to a new album from the experimental crew. If and when that happens, I’ll be among the first to bump it. For now, however, I’m more than content to smash play once again and drift into the ether.

Listen below.

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