On Childish Things, Erich Russek and Poets in Heat take the stories we thought we knew — Rapunzel, Humpty Dumpty, Chicken Little — and strip them down to their bones, only to rebuild them as warnings, elegies, and protest anthems. The result is a six-track EP that plays like a fairytale crime scene, where the innocence of childhood collides with the brutal clarity of adulthood.
Russek, known for his wry spoken-word delivery and taste for poetic confrontation, doesn’t sing so much as narrate a descent. Over grooves that range from swampy funk to ambient noir, he introduces us to fractured archetypes and collapsed kingdoms. Sleeping Beauty isn’t waiting for love — she’s a population sedated by propaganda. Chicken Little isn’t paranoid — he’s the only one paying attention.
The production across Childish Things is restrained but deeply intentional: grooves pulse, atmospheres hum, and silence speaks just as loudly as rhythm. There’s a sense that each track was built like a stage — one where Russek steps forward, not to perform, but to testify.
Highlights include the hypnotic “Say My Name (Rumpelstiltskin)”, a track that pulses with tension even in its instrumental form, and “Froggie Went A Courtin,” a warped folk tale turned political satire where the wedding march sounds suspiciously like the end of the world. But the EP’s emotional core may lie in “Once a Heart is Broken (Humpty’s Defeat),” a sorrow-drenched meditation on emotional ruin that transforms nursery tragedy into raw confessional poetry.
Childish Things isn’t nostalgic — it’s revelatory. It asks what happens when the stories we grew up on no longer fit the world we live in. And it answers with art that’s haunting, intelligent, and unflinchingly human.