Many underground MCs stay beneath the surface due to club/radio-unfriendly beats and a lack of lyrical skills. Neither is the case on “Give It Here,” the first single from Good Brothers, a compilation of Project Blowed affiliates. Underground vets Ahmad, Aceyalone and Pep Love bring more West Coast heat than the Ventura wildfires over a tribal Neptunes-esque beat. The flip’s “Come Unity” features Aceyalone and Riddlore rhyming over a Middle Eastern riddim augmented by Jah Orah’s patois patter.
Wide Hive Wide Hive Remixed
This split 12″ from Wide Hive’s upcoming remix album starts with Foreign Legion’s DJ Design remixing DJ Zeph and Azeem’s “Mirrors On Sand.” Put it on and watch the dancefloor fill up to this clap-happy, guitar-driven remix (complete with new lyrics from Azeem). Keep them dancing with the bubblin’ and bouncy Rockskin (a.k.a. actor Jon Abrahams) remix of Variable Unit’s “Seven Grains” with MC Rubix. VU’s “Dr. J Dub” gets the incredible Zeph treatment, complete with live horns, organ and bass.
Various Artists Def Jux 3
Other than the fact that some dude that sounds like El-P comes on every minute in every song to remind me that I’m listening to a Def Jux promo, Def Jux 3 is an enjoyable, bracing peep into the future of indie rap’s most potent label. Of course, if you buy the disc, you won’t have to sweat the interruptive reminder, but you will get 13 tracks of disjointed beats, rhymes that would make Shakespeare turn green and more lyrical smackdowns than Run-DMC’s pre-God-squadding salad days. RJD2, as usual, makes the biggest impression with the pristine, poignant “Clean Living,” but El-P delivers some patented kicks to the grill on the harrowing “Oxycontin Part 2” and “Weathermen Radio.”
Various Artists John Doe: Popular Fallacies (True Lies)
Big ups, Cincy! Fuck Ken Griffey, Jr.: John Doe has much better wrists and actually comes through in the clutch. Using popular-that is, crappy-cinema and the finest hip-hop joints in history as his points of departure, DJ John Doe has crafted a bomb-track mixtape better than more than half of 2003’s musical output. Song titles run the gamut from “Back to the Future” to “A Beautiful Mind” and KRS-One, Slick Rick, Chuck D, Guru, Tribe and countless more leak into the seamless mix, as do Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and other cheeseballs of the silver screen. Like his pals in The X-ecutioners, Doe has a musical bible for a brain and a sure-fire sense of humor, and both are on brilliant parade in Popular Fallacies. Grab this shit and spin it. Now.
Voodoo Child Baby Monkey
Moby emerged in 1991 with brooding beat-borne anthems such as “Next Is the E.” By 1996, after guitar exorcisms and maudlin manifestos, many were likely chanting the mantra “Next is the why?” So mini-Melville utilized Voodoo Child as his hedonist house alter-ego, and here is his second full-length under the moniker. Inspired by a night out listening to DJs in a Glaswegian tunnel, Baby Monkey is a collection with tunnel vision-throwbacks for throw downs. After all his gospel-tinged, melancholy pop-pump, Moby returns to the straightforward form of four-on-the-floor peppered with synth squiggles, bass pulse and vocal spasms. A welcome return for those left cold by chilled-out, cinematic meditations.
Igloo Igloo
Igloo’s name betrays the methods by which it was made-this self-titled record is made up of tracks composed in a state of isolation, of near-hibernation. This is work in its embryonic stage, brought to life in a place of comfort, warmth and shelter and beguiling in its innocent, folky charm. A side project of New York’s Adam Pierce (Mice Parade, HiM, Swirlies) and Munich’s Doro Tachler (Mice Parade, Alles Wie Gross), Igloo is imbued with the crisp, chiming enchantment you’d come to expect from such a pair, as well as some captivating multicultural croon. Although Igloo lacks any form of explorative percussion, its serenades do have a National Geographic stateliness in their serene sweep.
TV On The Radio Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
With a skronk and a grating groove, New York trio TV on the Radio opens its debut full-length, a montage of dense, droning dream-pop doo-wop. It is in the tug of croon against crags, the discordant grain of the emotional fissures the group rends and forges, that these guys find their thrall, their disparate bop equally desperate and buoyant. TVOR is an idiosyncratic entity, commanding jagged menacing plod and shimmering soul atmospherics in the spirit of the Bowie/Eno/Berlin trilogy. The sound is a submerged surge. The experience is baptismal. TV on the Radio is the manic street preacher prophesizing contemplative chaos.
Various Artists Cottage Industries 3: Vestibule & Separate
Metamatics main man Lee Norris is startlingly prolific when it comes to making pixilated Pantone neo-electronica and showcasing like-minded artists on his Cottage Industries compilation series. The third installment meets with mixed results as an array of new names stretch the IDM genre into sappy New Age territory-some adding strummed guitars, some merely existing. Unsurprisingly, the highlights belong to the marquee names: Apparat turns in a stunning contribution with vocalist Marit Post; Greg Davis offers intricate folk guitar, and Maps and Diagrams deliver by-the-book yummy electro noodle. Mmm, very industrious.
Arthur Russell The World of Arthur Russell
With Soul Jazz’s priceless curatorial eye still firmly set on early ’80s downtown New York, they turn to reissuing a true American hero, Arthur Russell. A classically trained cellist versed in Indian music, Russell moved to New York at the beginning of its great musical renaissance, where he performed with avant gardists David Byrne, Phillip Glass, Rhys Chatham and Allen Ginsberg while also founding classic dance label Sleeping Bag Records. His startling leftfield disco tracks feature here along with some of his more introspective manipulated cello numbers. An essential compilation of experimental dance music, as you’d bankrupt yourself trying to find the originals.
Kid 606 Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You
With his third LP, Kill Sound…, Miguel Depedro (alias Kid606) goes from laptop jock and mash-up impresario to bona fide culture recycler, skimming off the best ten seconds (and there usually were only ten seconds) of early ’90s rave anthems and molding them into ragga, breakcore, dancehall and post-noise simulacra. Each tune is a dance music time capsule. For the quickstep thriller “Ecstacy Motherfucker,” Depedro ravages rave classics from N.A.S.A., DJ Hype, Yolk and at least 20 others. If you’re familiar with the original tracks, listening to Kill Sound… feels like failing an Alzheimer’s test; for the rest of the world, it simply makes for top-notch dance-punk entertainment.
