Quadeca - Vanisher, Horizon Scraper
“There’s a man on the horizon. Paradise is just behind him. But if he turns around, it disappears.”
This is the third official album from singer-songwriter, rapper, multi-instrumentalist, and superproducer, Quadeca.
Born Ben Lasky, the former YouTuber-turned-professional artist got his start in music by posting viral freestyles, diss tracks, and music reactions frequently on his page. Lasky’s first album under the Quadeca name, Voice Memos, came out in spring of 2019 and contained material that was stylistically familiar with the content he was dropping at the time.
But it wasn’t until From Me to You, released two years later, that Lasky made a dent in carving his distinct niche. The self-produced record saw the young artist blending experimental electronic music with conscious hip-hop and singer-songwriter elements, and was released to heavy fan acclaim.
He then followed up that album with 2022’s I Didn’t Mean to Haunt You, a conceptual record that dealt with death, regret, and reconciliation, narrated from the perspective of a ghost. The album included notable singles like “Born Yesterday,” “Tell Me a Joke,” and “Fantasyworld,” and saw special appearances from Danny Brown, Thor Harris, formerly of the band Swans, and even the Sunday Service Choir.
Quadeca also dropped a mixtape in 2024, Scrapyard, a collection of ideas and songs that he released incrementally in the aftermath of his last album. Scrapyard was a more informal affair for Lasky. Still, the makeup of the record is overall less dramatic and conceptual than the majority of Haunt You, and it takes on a more lighthearted approach, one that Lasky hasn’t leaned into far since his YouTube days.
However, since the lead-up to Vanisher’s release, I was under suspicion that he would strike a happy medium between conceptuality and freeform ideas. Quadeca even mentioned a personal note at the end of one of the teaser videos, explaining: “No 2 songs on the album are alike, which has made singles a difficult task. Part of me doesn’t believe in singles, and the other part of me wants every song to have its own universe. I can’t wait to reveal the full picture.”
And now that the full picture is unveiled, Quadeca created what I see as his magnum opus.
Vanisher is undoubtedly Ben’s most conceptual and ambitious project to date. Paired alongside a film complementing the entire LP, the worldbuilding that Quadeca crafts throughout this project is sonically varied, capturing a bit of something for everyone: the ballads, the bangers, the real meditators. But each song, as he mentioned, fits as a puzzle piece to the grander image, a living image that twists and turns the album’s concept in strange ways.
The album and the visual accompaniment both follow the same story: a man is lost at sea trying to find something that is unreachable. This premise may seem simplistic for newer fans, but Ben’s influences range far enough to make the voyage a thrilling one. Haunt You was the first project from him that took a concept and turned it in multiple directions, leaving fans guessing at every second as to what production tricks he was implementing or how each track would sequence after the other. It was overly ambitious, intentionally messy even in some spots, but this was a necessary step Ben needed to take to become a more “established” artist, for lack of a better term.
This new album, by comparison, sounds much cleaner, as Quadeca took on mastering the project, something that he didn’t do for his other works, making sure that the heaviness of the display and the songs aren’t at odds with each other. And I’m glad he went that route because the tracks are all the better for it. I don’t want to go into every track for this review, but most of the songs do have change-ups, and Quad knows how to pair two distinctly different sonic ideas cohesively into one track.
The first time I heard “RUIN MY LIFE,” I was taken aback by how the guitar ballad rears its neck by the second half, leading into a poem followed by a beautiful drum breakdown. Or on “THUNDRRR,” which is a banger on all measures, where the booming drum machine beats pair up against some quiet and lush acoustic guitar arpeggios by the back end. Again, this is an album that has a bit of everything for everyone. You don’t know which side of Quadeca you’re gonna get and when, but each stylistic change-up makes sense in the grander album arc. He’s not just satisfying fans by doing this; he's becoming more in his own lane.
Not only does this album showcase the range that Quad has as a super-producer, but this album also includes a lot of guest instrumentalists that sharpen the edges of the image. Some of the tracks are kissed with strings and woodwinds, which work into the fold seamlessly on the album’s more subtle moments. The opener, “NO QUESTIONS ASKED,” is a mostly instrumental track, minus the “I’ll be there when no one is” repetitions by the back third, but the way Quad’s productions meander both with and against the arrangements makes the unveiling of the song much more engaging. The lush strings on the intro to “THAT’S WHY” give Quadeca’s rapping a cinematic quality that I haven’t heard too much from him, and clear up just in time for that sing-along chorus. Or even on the four-minute ambient interlude, “I DREAM OF SINKING,” Quad is crafting an atmosphere along with these artists that he could not replicate if he were just by himself.
Ben’s vocal performances throughout Vanisher might be the most vulnerable he’s been on a full project. The styles he chooses from are far-reaching and are varied just enough to make his voice sound fresh for nearly 70 minutes. Quad has been on a singer-songwriter kick for the past few years as an artist, and it’s been really interesting to see how his skill set in that field has been expanding, considering he started on YouTube making diss tracks.
That being said, this is by far the best rapping he’s done on any project. I’m glad he went back to his roots in alternative rap because it gives him that much more power and presence behind the mic. “WAGING WAR” has some of my favorite moments in a Quadeca song, not because of its production choices or how much he puts his heart on display, but it’s because the singing and rapping meld the song together. The transition from the rap verse that kicks the song off, to the sung forlorn choruses and string-heavy interludes, to the rapping on the back end of the track makes the song such an enthralling odyssey. I’d also like to mention “DANCING WITHOUT MOVING” for this cutesy rap delivery that Quad uses between the harmonized chores. It reads as a niche callback to his “internet rap” days, at least for me, but in the best way possible, and it doesn’t end up detracting from the record’s consistency.
The final thing I want to mention is that the two features from Danny Brown and UK post-rock band Maruja are both solid additions to the tracklist, and their inclusions make the record larger than life.
Brown’s inclusion on “THE GREAT BAKUNAWA,” a song about the literal end of the world, is cheeky, as per Danny Brown standards, but the meat and potatoes of his verse is blood-curdling. According to Filipino folklore, the Bakunawa, who Brown voices, is a snake-like sea monster whose job is to eat all eight moons in the sky, until it is eventually warned off from eating the final one by villagers banging on drums, which is their explanation for how eclipses happen. Anyway, this track is dystopian. The distortion and feedback ringing in the ears against these soft snare patterns is an unsettling atmosphere at first glance. But Danny’s verse, incorporating the folklore with the overall arc of the album, is an insane way to flex penmanship. His delivery is deceivingly menacing and complements the production and Quad’s repetition of “It’s the end!” strikingly well.
Maruja’s inclusion on the album works a bit differently. The band is officially credited on the closing track, “CASPER,” but I was surprised to hear lead singer Harry Wilkinson’s voice appear at multiple points during the album. I can admit, this motif caught me off guard on first listen. But now I see him taking on the role of this soothsayer, a narrator that foreshadows the main character’s ending throughout certain sections of the album. And it’s a welcome inclusion within the tracklist, one that subtly reinforces the record's themes.
On the breakdown of “RUIN MY LIFE,” his voice appears on the lead-up to the instrumental, ramping up the progression of the song and giving us insight into the loneliness of the lead character. Near the middle section of “AT A TIME LIKE THIS,” his monologue prepares listeners for a disorienting final half of the track. His chemistry with Quadeca makes sense throughout the record. He gives the album direction when the music seems directionless in the moment. These inclusions both influence the arc of the record and the recurring themes about looking deeply upon regrets, losing innocence, and the looming fear that something you’re trying to reach is unattainable.
These vocal snippets interlaced between the album all coalesce in the album’s closer, which, for this review, I will not spoil. I think for an ending as suspenseful, grandiose, and all-encompassing as this one, it would be sacrilegious in my view to give the ending away. It might be the most exciting closer to an album I’ve heard this year. There are times when I’ve returned to the album again just to experience listening to the closer again. The twist that Quadeca and Maruja pull off left me speechless for a good while, and that alone gives this album immense replay value.
I don’t want to say anything more about this record, as if I continue, I may accidentally spoil the whimsy and the adventure this record takes you on. But if you are even remotely curious about listening to this new project, watch the visual accompaniment first. The story and the tracklist fit each location in the film strikingly well, and I still have certain shots ingrained in my head even when I’m not watching the movie. It gave me a better understanding of how this character interprets and navigates a voyage without an end. Remembering those shots and the moments on the record that correlate with them only raises my engagement with this album. I’m still looking for small intricacies from both the album and film that I’m missing, and that’s a great thing. I believe for that audio-visual quality alone, this will be one of the more memorable albums of 2025.
One last thing I’ll mention is that for the past few years, I’ve been invested in the progression from creatives that start on smallish platforms like YouTube, to finding their voice in a more professional limelight. It seems now more than ever, it’s a common occurrence that these niche creators and entertainers will branch out to do something different, hopefully engaging more eyes, utilizing a bigger platform.
Quadeca has been on this path for over half a decade, but I finally believe he has hit the sweet spot on this new album. He’s come a long way. This album may not have been the image some of his earliest fans expected from him, but I wouldn’t trade this work for anything else, and I doubt they would either. His music exists to make you feel something, his production exists to blow your damn mind, and his albums are great because they subvert audience expectations at every facet. Quadeca succeeds on all these measures and more throughout Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, and lord knows how far-ranging his next work will be. After all, the horizon is limitless.
Favorite Tracks: NO QUESTIONS ASKED, RUIN MY LIFE, WAGING WAR, GODSTAINED, AT A TIME LIKE THIS, MONDAY, DANCING WITHOUT MOVING, THAT’S WHY, THUNDRRR, THE GREAT BAKUNAWA, FORGONE, CASPER
Least Favorite: NATURAL CAUSES
9.5/10
