For their 3rd full-length album titled Owl (Galapagos4, 2010), Qwel & Maker’s creative partnership has gone from ‘occcasional collaboration’ to a full-fledged endeavor and the results are loud, clear, and undeniable.
Once described by Rolling Stone as having “stark, biographical songs that occupy the same bleak terrain as Francis Bacon paintings or The Dark Knight,” the Chicagobased duo has matured substantially since the release of their 2009 sophomore LP and continually raise the bar with their brand of raw, unadulterated, underground Hip-Hop.
“The Owl watches and grows wiser,” explains Maker. “As we became more aware of our environment, we gained new perspectives. This album is our way of reconnecting with everything that surrounds us.”
The duo is most at home on tracks like “El Camino” where Qwel’s lyrics scrape vibrant, and often harsh, realities across Maker’s soundscape of hard hitting drums and deft arrangements. “Name looking strange in the limelight / Chamber what you trying to change / Sitting here soaking in hindsight / It’s the road / Its the life I chose” concludes Qwel on “El Camino.” Newly commited to the ‘life they chose’ and resolved to defeat stagnation in an industry in transition, Qwel & Maker have only just begun…
