It's wonderful when squalor can feel so whimsical. Its amazing when such drab moments or situations in life can sound so idyllic. Then again, these could always just be misreadings and all of the whimsicality and idyllic nature could just be a bunch of rubbish. We could be hearing what we want to hear in the songs of Mikill Pane, but from over here, it sounds as if these stories of urban woesomeness are actually kind of heroric. They're at the least quite a bit prouder than you'd imagine they could ever be. A song like "Good Feeling" accounts for one crazy situation after another and a shit landlord demanding money while being cast as a squatter (a la a woman taking a leak) and a snake (only caring about when the rent money has been deposited into his account). It's a song that describes living just one half-step up from skid row, trying to make it through school, throwing parties in which the shit place he's living in is just going to get further trashed and still coming to the conclusion that things seem to be looking up, or they never really have been that low to begin with. Mikill Pane, the rapper from Hackney, London, demonstrates an attraction to a dreariness that never gets totally dark. It's more just self-deprecation and dealing with the crap as it hits the fan. It's understanding that everything's easy come and easy go and that some days are worse than others. There are times when the brawn beats the brains, as he alludes to here and the guy grilling chicken in the rain looks like a champion. Most days, that's not how it works. Most days, that dick of a landlord looks like a dick. What's nice is that if it's not too bad out there, the junk can all be put aside and the little things can be appreciated. And if that doesn't work, there's always anonymous sex with randoms.