It has been short but good. After just two seminal albums,
the Anti-Pop Consortium boys have gone there separate
ways, leaving an impressive testament behind them. Quick
on the mark, Beans is the first to re-emerge, following
his Nude Paper EP released three years ago
on Mo’wax, with a collection of broken hip-hop
beats and progressive lo-fi backdrops.
Originating from White Plain, NY, Beans first got noticed
as part of the Brooklyn Boom Poetic collective, but
it is as one third of Anti-Pop Consortium that he became
an important figure on the hip-hop scene, touring with
artists as diverse as DJ Shadow, Radiohead, Vernon Reid,
Pharoahe Monch or Cannibal Ox. After a first album,
Tragic Epilogue, released on 75 Ark, the trio
signed with Warp and produced the End Against The
Middle EP and Arrhythmia album, moving
in the process to more electronic soundscapes. APC disbanded
in mid 2002. Tomorrow Right Now sees Beans
experimenting with lo-fi atmospherics and concussed
beats, taking the sonic realm of Arrhythmia
to a much more DIY level. Equally as complex and abstract
as the APC releases, Tomorrow Right Now offers
contrasted landscapes, as Beans juxtaposes his relatively
classic rhymes and chaotic electronic constructions.
Relying on tight rhythmic loops layered over the sound
structures, Tomorrow Right Now is surprisingly
quite catchy at times, as on the infectious Phreek
The Beet, Hot Venon or Mutescreamer,
where the man seems to work his beats and sounds best,
but when he drops everything to use his voice as only
instrument, on Crave and Booga Sugar,
Beans reaches far beyond his own scope, establishing
a link between classic and contemporary hip-hop. Not
all works as well though. When he seems to let his mind
run free in some kind of improvised noise avalanche
on Sickle Cell Hysteria, Beans looses track
of his poetic musical form. This is however short-lived,
and the rest album remains intense and strong all the
way through, allowing Beans’s radiant constructions
to support his intricate lyrics.
Not taking the APC sound for granted by any means, Beans
is his own man here, building on his former band’s
soundscapes, yet giving this album its unique touch.
Not dissimilar to the sonic experimentations of the
Anticon crew, yet closer to the roots of hip-hop, Tomorrow
Right Now is definitely a captivating piece of
work.
3.7/5 |
