Since he first surfaced in the mid-2010s, Toronto’s Matthew Progress has certainly lived up to his surname. Where his early singles favoured high-energy hip-house, Progress’ debut full-length with producer Dan Only, God Made Dirt, presents a musically and ideologically dense avant-rap tapestry. From its opening barrage of ominous news sound bites, God Made Dirt makes it immediately clear this isn’t going to be a smooth ride, as Progress’ overlapping, pitch-shifting vocal tones and Only’s unpredictable productions maintain a perpetual state of disequilibrium, whether they’re turbo-charging trap beats into drum ’n’ bass on the existential-crisis address “Gen Pop” or recounting the details of an orgy over the woozy psych-soul of “Digital Underground”. But with centrepiece track “Haddaway”, Progress and Only reveal themselves as spiritual successors to another dynamic duo—Outkast—who blurred the line between electro-rap ecstasy and brain-bending weirdness.