Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines is the companion album to Quazarz: Born On A Gangsterstar, the introductions to Shabazz Palaces Quazarz Omniverse.
Ishmael Butler’s Shabazz Palaces project has always occupied another plane, his discordant sounds and bizarro abstract lyrics just close enough to the familiar to spur intense cognitive dissonance.
Their latest records, the simultaneously released Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines and Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star, are their most direct attempt at universe-building, with Butler playing the part of the protagonist Quazarz, a “sent sentient from some elsewhere” who navigates “Amurderca” on the “Gangster Star”—dystopian parallel versions of the country and the planet that feel as familiar as they are terrifying (“We post-language, baby, we talk with guns,” he raps on “Welcome to Quazarz”).
Jealous Machines and Gangster Star feel even more connected than the last double release—the debut EPs Of Light and Shabazz Palaces—but they represent different modes of creation. Butler honed Jealous Machines with the producer Sunny Levine over periodic trips to Southern California stretched out over months; Gangster Star was banged out back home in Seattle with Erik Blood over two weeks in 2016, when intended bonus tracks evolved into a complete album (From the Pitchfork website).