Atmosphere LUCY FORD

Atmosphere includes: Slug (rap vocals).Additional personnel includes: El-P (rap vocals).The opening track on Lucy Ford, "Between the Lines," burrows into the heads of a frustrated policeman, an oblivious young girl who watches movies perpetually to get away from her own life, and an indie rapper who descends into self-abnegation instead of self-aggrandizement -- hardly typical subject matter for a rap song. In fact, with Slug's singsong delivery, it hardly seems like a rap song at all, and is tugged back toward the genre only by Ant's steady beat-making. But then Atmosphere proves not to be typical in most every respect on this debut full-length, which is much the better for the duo's, and particularly its MC's, peculiarities. Lucy Ford actually collects the bulk of a pair of early Fat Beats-distributed vinyl EPs from the Minneapolis-based group on a single long-playing disc. It makes for a sterling introductory display. Like Eminem, Atmosphere is a joy to hear when caricaturing old sc