This is a buffet style beat tape (see thread "What is a beat tape?"). In fact, this is the epitome of this style of arranging, with some of these featuring what would normally amount to as many as five beats which are now crammed into the average run time of one beat. Even though this is a technique in the tradition of helping vocalists to preview the content, I think it is an interesting sort of random dice roll way of arranging based on a formula. Not every loop fully gets an equal amount of time. Some less dynamic loops only play 8 bars, not the standard 16.
With this tape, I was making a buffet for Facts and Chemist, and we still may do some vocals on them, but I thought it was also interesting to just hear this set of beats, which were honestly made at a time when I was reading a maximum amount of X-Men comics (still) and thinking about them constantly. So, rather than say more about this beat tape, which is not a concept album except in title, I am going to just give you a brief explanation of the comic book scenarios that each song suite is named after.
Don't Smoke Krakoa: This is about a sentient island that was intitally one of the X-Men's first major adversaries, but later the island became a utopia that mutants could teleport to through portals.
Uncanny X-Farce: This is a title that parodies Uncanny X-Force, meaning the comic book run and subsequent graphic novel written by Rick Remender and featuring a lot of Esad Ribic art. This is one of the greatest X-Men related runs of all time, right up there with Grant Morrison's New X-Men.
Time Displaced: This refers to the time when the X-Men screwed everything up so bad that one of their smartest minds decided to bring their old selves from the past, prior to their moral bankruptcy, to teach them a lesson. Then of course they get stuck here,
X-Infernus: This is a minor comic book event involving Magik and her brother Collosus, two Russian mutants. Illiana (Magik) has a sword made out of her own soul, is usually the ruler of a place similar to limbo, and when she indulges these eveil powers (like in this story), she becomes the Darkchilde, a hooved and horned version of herself. Her brother just turns to metal. For a while he was also the Juggernaut, but that's another story.
Squidboy and The Juggernaut: Juggernaut is Professor X's half brother, Cain Marko, who is usually a formiddable villain but in this scenario he plays schoolboy friend to a fish face kid named Squid Boy. SB gets suspicious that his feind has gone villainous again, so he trails him, gets the wrong idea, gets killed, and the Juggernaut is emotionally destroyed.
Penance Chamber: This is about two Generation X characters, Chamber, who's respertory ystsem is a star (I think), and he communicates through telepathy. The other is Penance, the alter ego of a chick who is just named "M." These characters are awesome!
Nude Mutants: This is just a tongue-in-cheek way of giving props to the New Mutants, but also a subtle shoutout to Husk, who looses her closes each time she sheds her skin to turn to wood or whichever material she wants. The 90s had some crazy ideas.
Essex: Is not about a city in America, but about Nathaniel Essex, Mister Sinister, and the Essex Corp. He is a mutant geneticist who was created by an ancient character named Apocalypse.
X-Statix: This was a team that was a joke, first appearing as the new X-Force who were crumby celebrities and they got sued (not in real life), so they adopted the super ridiculous name X-Statix. The whol series makes no sense and relates to nothing, but technically they are mutants and the book is also hillarious when you catch on to it's dry wit.
Enjoy!