Ghost Mountain - 2009 Siamese Sailboats

Band : Ghost Mountain

Album : Siamese Sailboats

 Release Year : 2009
 Genre : Indie | Electronic | Hip-Hop | Experimental

Tracklist :

01 The Atomic Brain
02 Trees
03 Squid Riot
04 Good Heart
05 Neon Swings
06 Super
07 Furry Smiles
08 Just A Kid
09 Batman on a Couch
10 Friends
11 Face
12 Clementine

And now, dropping by from another planet...Ghost Mountain's Siamese Sailboats. Okay, maybe not, but that's sure what it feels like to listen to the trio's seemingly acid-fueled mashup of Spiritualized psychedelia, nerdcore-style rapping, and downright joyful-sounding, Atom and His Package-esque candy-pop melodies; I'll grant that there's probably somebody out there who's hit on this particular combination independently, but I sure as hell haven't ever heard 'em.
The band's closest analogue at points is probably Bay Area freak-hoppers cLOUDDEAD, particularly in terms of the oddball lyrical imagery and the waves and washes of noise that occasionally threaten to drown vocalist/sampler-wielder Daniel's voice, but really, I can't bring myself to label this "hip-hop" of any flavor. It just doesn't fit; Ghost Mountain's vocals are primarily rapped in Daniel's nerdy-guy deadpan, but they're only a tool, a piece used to build the whole contraption.

At their best, Ghost Mountain plays like the love child of Animal Collective neo-psych and a syrup-slowed, heavy-lidded MC Paul Barman, incorporating vocab-heavy lines with layers of bright, warm-and-fuzzy M83 synths, cloud-sweeping atmospherics, and a gleeful sense of childish abandon (see "The Atomic Brain," "Trees," "Face"). At their weirdest, they near Four Tet territory, crafting intricate blankets of warm, comforting instrumental melodicism, with multi-instrumentalist Stephen (the third member of the triad is electric guitarist Max; no last names here, apparently) singing near-unintelligibly through a vocoder (see "Neon Swings," "Furry Smiles," "Friends").

Oddly enough, those bits of the disc remind me of nobody more than ex-Houstonian Jody Hughes, who put out a completely obscure album of vocoder pop several years back before vanishing completely to parts unknown. Given these guys' relatively youthful demeanor and the fact that Hughes is barely a memory these days, I'm guessing they'd have no clue who he is/was, but it's still an intriguing resemblance.
The utter high point of the album is "Good Heart," with its bitter-yet-restrained lyrics (which are addressed to a former lover/girlfriend but really seemed aimed, Stuart Smalley-like, right back at the singer as a kind of affirmation), head-nodding beat, thick, escalating bassline, watery keys, and -- best of all -- left-field, hymn-like "Stars in the sky" refrain.
It's like nothing I've ever heard before, and even after repeated listens, I find myself skipping backwards through the album, trying in vain to figure out how they pieced and assembled all this together and made it work. Because it definitely freaking does, somehow. -Jeremy Hart

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Wugazi - 2011 13 Chambers

Band : Wugazi

Album : 13 Chambers

Release Year : 2011

Genre : Hip-Hop | Rap | Post-Hardcore

Tracklist :

1. Sleep Rules Everything Around Me
2. Suicide Surprise
3. Another Chessboxin' Argument
4. Ghetto Afterthought
5. Sweet Release
6. Shame On Blue
7. Slow Like That
8. Floating Labels
9. P.L.O. Squared
10. Nowhere To Wait
11. Last Chance For The Clientele Kid
12. Killa Hill
13. Forensic Shimmy

Wugazi is a labor of love by Cecil Otter & Swiss Andy. A year’s worth of cutting up every imaginable Fugazi record and trying out every Wu-Tang acapella they could get their hands on, resulted in Wugazi: 13 Chambers (a must listen for anyone who even looked at a skateboard in the 90’s).

Cecil Otter is an emcee & producer, and one of the founding members of Doomtree. He has contributed to over a dozen records. His most recent full-length, Rebel Yellow, was re-released by Sage Francis for Strange Famous Records. He’s now recording his solo project, Porcelain Revolver.

Swiss Andy is a musician & producer residing in Minneapolis. He has been a contributor to several bands including The Millionth Word, Field Guide and The Swiss Army. He is currently working on a remix of Rebel Yellow.

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Dälek - 2005 absence

Band : Dälek

Album : Absence

Release Year : 2005

Genre : Hip-Hop / Noise / Experimental

Tracklist : 

1. Distorted Prose
2. Asylum (Permanent Underclass)
3. Culture for Dollars
4. Absence
5. A Beast Caged
6. Koner
7. In Midst of Struggle
8. Eyes to Form Shadows
9. Ever Somber
10. Opiate the Masses 

 

If the Metal Machine Music of hip-hop hasn’t been made before now, this is it. Absence doesn’t depart from Dälek’s previous two records (1998’s Negro Necro Nekros and 2002's From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots) so much as it distills their harshest, most confrontational elements.

Anyone who’s ever heard those two albums knows that’s saying a lot. Among well-known hip-hop artists, New Jersey’s Dälek have always been most similar to El-P – both favor huge, noisy textures. Unlike El-P, though, Dälek have never shown any interest in microphone gymnastics or complex beats, preferring instead to explore waves of noise inspired by groups like Sonic Youth and Flying Saucer Attack. (That description may remind you somewhat of Clouddead's self-titled album, but Dälek is far nastier.) Sonic Youth and FSA are pretty uncompromising themselves, of course, and they’re pretty unusual influences for a hip-hop group, but what really sets Dälek apart is that they background the beats and rhymes that would be in the foreground in almost all other hip-hop. Even at their most accessible (Negro’s “Swollen Tongue Bums,” From Filthy Tongue’s “Speak Volumes”), Dälek is a pretty extreme group.

Absence differs from Dälek’s previous albums in that almost all the catchy bits are absent until the tail end of the record, when “Ever Somber” rides a very My Bloody Valentine-style hook. Before that, Absence is almost defiantly loud – nearly every track features a huge coat of noise that screams from the speakers. The album is also more stylistically unified than Dälek’s previous efforts – there aren’t any of the obvious experiments with Indian music that Dälek used to attempt, and nothing on Absence features live guitars and drums like From Filthy Tongue did. It’s hard to imagine anyone making an album more abrasive than this that’s still recognizable as hip hop (I’m sure someone will do it, but it’s still hard to imagine). Like Metal Machine Music, Absence is startling and fantastic sounding, and it can make most music from the genre from which it sprang seem frivolous, if you’re in the right mood. And this is what hip-hop sound should be. Enjoy!

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