Call it weird, disturbing, intriguing, challenging… call
it whatever you like, Clouddead is beyond description.
As they reach far beyond the realms of hip-hop, Dose One,
why? and Odd Nosdam avoid all the clichés of the
genre to present a collection of twelve captivating pieces
of uncompromising poetry, first released as a series of
six ten inches towards the end of last year.
Built on drowsy beats and elaborate sound elements, arranged
into short sequences supporting a flow of liquid lyrics,
this album is highly unconventional. Dark and atmospheric,
the soundtrack assembled by Odd Nosdam only adds to the
sarcastic tales told by Dose One and why? Dose One in
particular has developed, over the years, a very personal
style. He is able to increase or decrease significantly
the speed of his speech, pushing his rhyming to the limit
of sanity. As he battles with why? over slightly surrealist
lyrics, Odd Nosdam works on the musical equation with
brio, introducing sound structures rarely heard in hip-hop.
In fact, if he relies heavily on samples, he subjects
them to such treatment that most of them are hardly recognisable.
Although all racks are over five minutes long, they seems
like made up of a multitude of smaller parts, either left
colliding with each other, or proudly standing on their
own. It becomes somewhat hard to follow both the lyrics
and the music, as the direction appears to change constantly.
This, however, gives a much more homogenous feel to the
record, as if all segments were united by a same impression
of chaos. Nothing is too challenging for the trio, and
Clouddead's refusal to conform to any kind of rules gives
the album a much broader appeal. As complex as it gets,
Clouddead still remains quite minimalist in form.
The band construct miniature stories, set between freaky
humour and dark sarcasm, evoking more ambiences last found
in the trip-hop of Earthling, or the films of Hitchcock
even, than in Public Enemy.
As the album unfolds, Clouddead stage their own commercial
death in profit of creativity. This album, as much as
Prefuse 73’s recent
opus, renews the ties with early hip-hop, when it was
more important for artists to move forward than to collect
as much money as possible in the shortest time. Clouddead
is already a point of reference, and could well be a
catalyst for others to experiment from in the future.
5/5 |
