The Mountain Brothers are a Philly trio of Chinese American descent. Signed to powerhouse hip hop label Columbia/Ruffhouse a while back (only to realize how hard it can suck being on a major label), this is their selfreleased debut full length. Here's an excerpt from Ollie Wang's review from the Bay Guardian: "Self: Vol. 1, nearly three years in the making, hardly sounds dated, providing a refreshing alternative to the monotonous commercial drone. A brotherhood from another hood, the M.B.s are a welcome sign that with hip-hop's maturity comes diversity."
Metabolics were the least crazy of all the WordSound artsists, being just a solid, old school rap group, albeit with some added darkness. But on what we assume is the Metabolics second album, Mr. Dead becomes the focus and things get a little weirder. But only a little. The cover is demented, and there are some weird intros, and the lyrical bent is a little more 'crazy', but overall, it remains just a solid, old school rap record.
The Holy Trinity of underground hip hop, Company Flow / Def Jux / Anticon, can seemingly do no wrong. And here they strike again. This time it's Mr. Len of Company Flow, with a record of dark and sinister gloom-funk, all staticky a.m. radio wah wah and crunchy
Boston's Mr. Lif releases an eight-track cdep, a concept album of sorts, wherein Lif the MC has supposedly been taken by government agents or something, presumably because his clearly-delivered message is so insurgent. The liner notes are even written by his compadre Akrobatik: "As one of Lif's closest friends, I know that he provided sociopolitical commentary in hopes that his listeners would discuss the issues brought forth..." Cannibal Ox's El-P lends his talents to two tracks. The cd comes with two videos you can play on your computer. It's good.
Def Jux alert! Mr Lif's first full length is pretty great, something I didn't expect after hearing his (admittedly good, but not great) two prior EPs Emergency Rations and Enters the Colasus. I Phantom is a concept album, but don't let that deter you -- it's kinda nice to have an album length narrative with which to gain insight into Lif's vision of the world as full of the pressures and stress of social, governmental, cultural fucked-ness. Basically, as Lif spells out in exruciating detail in the liner notes, the story is one black man's life, starting with him getting killed during a robbery, resurrected by hip hop, gets a normal job, hates it, quits, etc etc, lots of tragedies involving marriage, suicide, murder and the end of the world. Pretty bleak but super interesting, and the production is courtesy Cannibal Ox's El-P, Fakts One, Insight, etc. -- brighter and cleaner than the rest of the Def Jux catalog but just as apocalyptic and heavy and layered and weird sounding in all the right ways. Aesop Rock, El-P, Insight, and others also guest on the mic. Compelling, but I'm worried it's not going to get the attention it deserves, so listen to the soundclips for sure.
It's been so long since we could whole heartedly rave about a Kool Keith record. A LONG time. Since Dr. Octagon maybe? Yeah, okay, we sorta dug Sex Style, but we much prefer the sci fi alien what-the-fuck KK to the kinky pervert KK for sure. And while Mr. Nogatco is no Dr. Octagon, it's as close as we've gotten in a long long time, so we'll take what we can get. This is some more of that Kool Keith freaky conspiracy theory shit, something about aliens, secret autopsies, you know the sort of thing. There's even a live alien dissection at the end of the disc, after a blissed out ambient skitterscape, with Keith nimbly leaping lyrically all over the fucking place, there's a strange microcassette recording of Keith talking all sorts of weirdness about some alien bodies they found in the desert, talking about their gel-type blood and stuff. What a nut. And so good to have him back in full freaked out space cadet mode. And while the music isn't quite as dense and deliriously wacked as the Automator's Octagonal beatscapes, producer IZ Real does all right, managing some pretty ominous X-FIles worthy sonic swells, plenty of haunting creep and cinematic crawl, moaning horns, rumbling drones, heavy metal guitars, a dark and doomy late night, rain soaked, blood drenched, government conspiracy, invaders from Mars series of freaky sci fi hip hop instrumentals for Keith as Mr. Nogatco to freak out over, and freak out he does, a flurry of surreal non sequiturs delivered in a lazy stoned drawl, an outerspace pod people mad as fuck flow, tales of dark space, bionic fuses, space men, eBay, elevation power, kinetics, mass gasses, credit cards, galaxy waxers, astronauts, dictators, force fields, green hands, slushies, rocketships and bikinis, laser corps, sneakers, lightning bugs, bubblegum, galactic foes, Jolly Ranchers, black hearts, hot milk, laser beams and all the other things Mr. Nogatco is fighting for, or battling against, or using to create a subatomic lightspeed jetliner, or just plain making up, in order to get in the pants of some three legged two headed space princess that he's supposed to be rescuing. Phew. Or maybe he's just plain nuts...
First solo record from Ms. Toi, the girl we all loved from that Ice Cube record ('put your back into it, put your ass into it') that seemed to play every five minutes a year or so back. We were kind of hoping M. Toi would follow the same trajectory as Amil,
Caught us sorta snoozin' on this one! This release actually came out back in 2006, and Cup heard its strange soulful glory out in Michigan that year. However, its name promptly vanished from her memory banks and we couldn't track it down until now! From the bio provided by Stones Throw Records it sure sounds like Ms Muldrow grew up within close proximity to some cool shit! Her father invented instruments for Eddie Harris and her mother sang with Pharaoh Sanders. Whoa. Initially Olesi: Fragments Of The Earth seems like a disorienting jumbled mess, albeit a really awesome sounding one -- a bunch of different unrelated pieces heaped up precariously into a generous twenty one tracks. All the parts ring familiar on their own in their old R&B, (almost free-) jazz, hip hop and soul ways, but we've never heard them arranged together in quite as unconventional a fashion as this! As the album progresses the sense of disorientation lingers, but her fevered vocal delivery and undulating, loping grooves prove infectious. The album definitely walks the fine line between defiant genius and baked madness. Seriously 'out there', she clearly had a 'vision' for this but it might not be for everyone! A fierce and bizarre debut.
Rap from the Sun City Girls camp... ??? WTF?
Brutal, catchy as fuck gangsta rap from these Def Jam/Ruff Ryder/ Murder Inc./Roc-A-Fella allstars. Sounds a lot like the last DMX record which is a good thing. With Jay-Z, Ja Rule, Vita, Black Child, and of course DMX.
Def Jux can seemingly do no wrong. And this latest Murs joint proves that point again and again. On first listen, 3:16 seems a lot more 'normal' than a lot of Def Jux stuff (Cannibal Ox, El-P, etc.) but on closer listening, this record is really fucked up, sonically -and- lyrically. The loops are very old school, simple and bumping, but with lots of strange arrangements, Wu-Tang style sped up diva vocals, stuttery classic soul snippets and hiccupping stop/start beats. And then there's Murs' laconic delivery, lazy but animated and boisterous (sounding quite a bit like Del at times actually), spitting some wickedly clever, and occasionally downright hilarious lyrics.
What could be better that one of our favorite raspy rappers, slooooowed way down and chopped all up. Pretty much nothing. So grab your cough syzurp and strap on those headphones and lean back and let go.
In my (Andee) quest for the coolest, meanest voice in hip hop (and my never-to-be-realised dream of a tuvan throat singer fronted hip hop group) there have been quite a few contenders. Ice Cube of course. DMX and Onyx. So far the leader of the pack has been a
Finally available domestically (at a cheap price, for now anyway), this record should be of interest even to the folks who bought the import version, cos N.E.R.D. re-recorded their debut with a live band instead of all samples and pro-tools. It's actually not
Big Jus of Company Flow and West Coast hip hop underground legend Orko the Sycotik Alien got together to record some of the most damaged, outer space, free form hip hop ever, but in the process, were so bombarded by news about Bush and the war that the record turned into a sort of protest letter, albeit, an abstract, psychotic, grinding, lurching one! This is maybe the ultimate in abstract hip hop, taking the unlikely sampling and unfunky beats of Anticon and the rapid-fire, tongue-twisting delivery of the modern crop of experimental hip hoppers to its logical extreme. Shimmery, finger picked guitars reverberate into a sitar-like mantra over spare, skittery beats while the flow is stumbling and drawled, stuttering and staccatto, dreamy jazzy pianos float beneath a super distorted slow motion breakbeat, protest chants are chopped and mixed into a thick mix of sweeping synths and crunchy galloping beats. Add in the wicked non-stop flow, dexterously weaving and bobbing, dodging bursts and beats, riding on waves of rumble and fuzz, and their RIGHT ON anti-Bush manifesto (there's even an ode to the pretzel that came so close, but ultimately failed to off the prez!) and you may just have the one of the most impotant underground hip hop records of the year. DEFINITELY for fans of Cloudead, Sage Francis, El-P, Cannibal Ox, Antipop Consortium and all that sort of stuff.
One of the cool things about having MTV (or MTV2/VH1 since MTV doesn't actually play videos anymore) is getting to see videos for all the crazy new hip hop I used to hear on the radio when I spent more time driving around (and when I actually had a car). Nappy
Nas is back. That unmistakable flow. Old school beats and looped strings. Epic and intense and completely classic sounding without feeling dated. Features the completely brutal 'Ether', probably the best 'dis' song in a while, a scathing lyrical 'fuck you' to
I love discovering stuff, be it bands or movies or whatever, by mistake. Especially when it's a really stupid mistake. For example, once when I was travelling in Europe, we read about a music festival, me and a friend of mine desperately wanted to go to this festival to see a band we both loved (Enslaved, if you must know) so somehow we convinced our travelling companions to drive overnight through 2 countries to make it to this festival. So of course we get there, and the band comes on stage and they don't look at all how they looked in pictures. And they didn't really sound like we remembered them sounding. Well, we eventually figured out it was another band with the same name! We never told the friends we were travelling with, but we -were- punished by not being able to find the house we were staying at and forced to sleep in the freezing van with no blankets or anything. Actually, I guess we didn't really discover anything, did we. Maybe how much the other Enslaved sucked. Okay so that wasn't a perfect example. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, a while back I was at another record store and I saw a record by Natas, and assuming it was a new record by AQ faves Natas, an awesome Argentinian stoner metal band, I snapped it up. Got home to discover that -this- Natas, was actually a super damaged, lo-fi, insanely produced, demented hip hop group. This is their newest record and it is fucking amazing. Super fucked production, extreme stereo panning, overblown hyper distorted casio beats, wailing electric guitar licks, demented sounding minor key pianos and 3 of the coolest, weirdest rappers ever. Definitely for fans of Fever, Sensational, Wordsound and all that sort of out there hip hop! And if you come in the store and can't find it, make sure to look in the metal section too, 'cause people seem to want to put this evil looking cd, complete with satanic (pitchforks crossed) logo, in there next to Nagelfar and Necro Schizma, which actually makes some weird sort of sense.
So if Eminem isn't hard enough for you, but you still like your rap white and whiney, Necro is for you. Inane, offensive, sometimes funny. Features the title track spoof of LLCoolJ's 'I Need Love'.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The fourth volume released by the Skratch Piklz, more beats and breaks for scratching.
First full length from Nettle (a duo that just happens to feature AQ fave DJ/ Rupture!!). This disc is mostly made up of previously released 12"s, but adds some extra tracks to make the whole package worthwhile, even if you have the wax. The sound here is pretty far removed from the plunderphonic dancehall turntable mashups of the two Rupture releases (though some Nettle tracks can be found on those discs). Nettle is more like a hyper-glitched, super distorted Muslimgauze. Middle Eastern melodies are buried under bumping beats, downtempo rhythms and lots of glitched out bursts of hyper distortion and BZZZZZZZTTT. Dreamy melodies weave in and out of the mix as do brief hip hop snippets and found sounds. While this doesn't have the sort of novelty factor of Rupture's DJ mixes, this is still some seriously great stuff.
Some of the best local hip hop we've heard in a while. Kind of upbeat (which usually turns me off immediately) but with a real sinister vibe and what sounds like a full on band: sliding guitars, funky bass, live sounding drums and actual catchy rock-ish
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Paranoid, def underground NYC hiphop from this crew newly signed to noted rap label Matador. Trax from their upcoming full-length debut "The Future Is Now". Totally aiming at the X-Files market with the black helicopters theme and the rad computer artwork, lettering and logo courtesy of Voivod's Away!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Seems like Non Phixion have been around forever, but 'The Future Is Now' is actually their debut full length, after a handful of 12"s and a brief stint on Matador. Another posse of white boys who have managed to sidestep the Vanilla Ice/Eminem/3rd Bass
