Posted on 05/21/2009
Jason the Argonaut is playful – the intelligent, good-natured type to shrug off life’s worries in a fun way, without indifference, and this makes Casting Couch approachable. Unfortunately the inconsistencies manage to weigh down the LP.

Jason hails from California and it shows in how he twists the pronunciation of words, bounding around the beat in a Del-like flow, like on “Make Them Wrong,” the slow boiling opener. But sometimes it isn’t enough to fill in the slack and songs end up being lumbering, like the weed ode “Cali Carb.”

Highlights include “Living For Me,” an assured manifesto wrapped in sweeping strings and anchored by some slow, heavy thumping drums, and “Brazil,” with it’s impressive production as Jason tells us of the struggle to stay afloat, a dream of a trip to the title nation serves as the motivation, his lyrics energetic and true –“you call this living? I call it just taking what you’re given,” he raps at one point. As the West Coast underground tends, Jason mixes positive, b-boy raps with fun-loving, vulgar romps like “I Know” and the clumsy “Come Here,” also managing to show, if not sensitivity, then an honest confusion about love on the first verse of “Love Me Naut.”

Casting… is entertaining and solid with varied songs, the beats ranging from knocking drums to swinging samples and flexible bass lines—but only for a while. The sequencing is bogged down and fractured, leaving the second half of the album too uneven, only really getting back on foot with the afore-mentioned “Brazil.” Jason’s affected nonchalance and Cali flow satisfies at times, the album itself, though, suffers under this doctrine, in the end needing a more steady, than cool hand.

- Chris White