When Electric Night Falls takes an honest and chilling look at the daily life of a young man desperately trying not to succumb to the gang lifestyle even though he is completely surrounded by it. This guy's day begins when the sun goes down and lead-off track "Night Fall" finds him and his crew getting ready for the evening, arguing over whether or not to take a gun, "Chill for a second
you're not cruisin' with this!"
The next two cuts find the ride pretty smooth; the talk is upbeat and deals with life's little triumphs. But the gun gets pulled, by somebody else, on "Pandemonium" and the ensuing retreat and desire to retaliate are dealt with on "Paranoid" and "Sidelines" respectively.
From there the concept moves into how the lifestyle affects relationships with women and family, ultimately acknowledging the hopelessness of the situation on "Strange Love." But just when all seems lost, the very brief "Inner Mood" represents some kind of opportunity to change the mind
a dream, a drug trip, a divine intervention; whatever it is it seems to end up positively as the last track is entitled "Great Escape."
The whole scenario goes down set to a trip-hop soundtrack; exotic instrumentation that includes waves of ebb-and-flow synth, interludes of Asian sounding stringed instruments, bursts of turntable that stab at the space between whispered words and humbled raps. If you were living this street life these far flung sounds in the head might make the scene tolerable; here safely detached in our home they make the scene downright pleasurable.
