Born Justin Bacik aka Hefe Heetroc aka Wez Nilez in Rochester, NY. Raised on Nirvana, Bush, and the grunge movement, he started playing guitar and writing songs at 19, finding his roots in Los Angeles. Justin started also listening to the burgeoning underground hip-hop scene in the 90s. Eventually finding his niche genre was the 2000’s music genre called “ghost rap”, sometimes known as “trillwave”, pioneered by Yung Lean. With Dadaistic lyrics, stoner beats, being his thing, Justin proudly taught himself how to make beats on Cubase SX 3.
In the age of internet and social media promoted music, if you have a niche, there’s a strong chance you will find an audience if you search deep enough. That’s where artists like Wez Nilez, emerging out of the modern day technological jungle make an impression. In his 17 track album, “Inoculare: Intersecting Dimensions”, the Los Angeles resident wallows in dreamlike aesthetics, glitching animated synths, harmonic vocalization, and surrealistic depictions of life.
While this blend of trillwave and vaporwave has yet to reach the mainstream, the results of Wez Nilez’ recordings will definitely impact interested ears. Notwithstanding the plethora of effects and sounds, Nilez’ rhyming and lyrical skills have not been masked behind the startling sonics and outstanding production.
With “Inoculare: Intersecting Dimensions”, that production seems interesting at first and unfolds into something that has much more depth to it. “Space Energy” is an absolute banger, the clear standout, the best beat Wez Nilez has done.
The industrial foundation is further boosted by a staunch murkiness, with synths wailing under smashing drums. Wez Nilez does a great job vocally bringing a matched urgency to the track. Something he successfully repeats on “Shr00mz”.
Wez Nilez creates tracks that encompass everything: talk of blunts, chains, cars, cracking bottles and random nonsense backed by a production production meant to evoke dark flooded caverns with muddled synths and drained drums.
“Good Luck You Hella High”, benefits from Nilez’ aggressive resurgence, making the abrasive production alluring and not detracting. As far as overall amalgamation goes, “Fat Hog” might have the best combined assets here. “Dime 2 Triple” is another standout, almost solely due to the beat, but Wez Nilez fading sanity over “Hacker’s” woozy template works in wonderful, symmetric unison.
Sometimes when the production doesn’t have an underbelly to explain its quaint videogame sounds, like on “Glow Worm” it tends to falter. However as soon Wez Nilez’, through either his lyrics or enunciation, declares his purpose, the picture snaps perfectly into place.
Bass, drums and jutting synths compose almost every track, with hazy textures filling in the cracks, meaning that sonically they all mesh through a sense of cohesiveness, which is ironic considering the disparate sounds forged on this album. W
hen Wez Nilez pulls out a strange rhyme scheme that turns concrete words into disjointed syllables, the production has no choice but to tag the line, allowing the track itself to separate from the pack. Many songs here accomplish this feat, as any variety in the songs comes from how diverse the ingredients are.
There are many interesting moments strewn around these recordings from beginning to end, allowing the songs to dismantle halfway through and then to rebuild themselves. Surprisingly there is a wealth of emotional depth as well, as Wez Nilez takes some of the more familiar rap game tropes and flips them on their heads in a way that only he is capable of.
OFFICIAL LINKS: WEBSITE – INSTAGRAM – SOUNDCLICK – ITUNES
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