BEATS with Dan Rule
Published: Music Australia Guide #77, June 2010.
Guilty Simpson
OJ Simpson
****1/2
OJ Simpson is a world away from the street-schooled gangsta tropes of Guilty Simpson’s 2008 debut Ode to the Ghetto. Riddled with off-kilter skits, conversation fragments and general sonic obscura – courtesy of production professor Madlib – the hardline Detroit rapper gives himself the scope to explore his real range here. Indeed, OJ affords Guilty’s roughneck renderings real light, shade and vantage. We don’t just get the tough guy, but a sense of context, experience and place. Cali Hills, his elegy to fallen Detroit contemporary JDilla, makes for his most moving track to date. Even the most uncompromising gun-slingers harbour sadness, hopes, fears and vulnerabilities.
Stones Throw/Fuse
Lorn
Nothing Else
****
Flying Lotus made a good call in appointing Lorn’s Nothing Else the inaugural album on his Brainfeeder imprint. The young Illinois producer merges grimy electronica, rippling sub-bass and surging orchestral dynamics on his strikingly succinct debut. Highlights abound. The militant drum rattle of Army of Fear and subterranean bass snarls of Automaton showcase Lorn’s penchant for heavy frequencies, while the melodic density and shimmering top end of Cherry Moon makes for a stunning moments of melancholia. Perhaps most impressive though is Lorn’s focus. His synthetic sonic palette may lack the colour of some producers, but he makes amends with a sheer, unshakable solidity.
Brainfeeder/Inertia
Nas & Damian Marley
Distant Relatives
***1/2
Hip hop legend Nas and reggae heir Damian Marley’s ode to African lineage, Distant Relatives, promises a lot in its opening stanzas. The rollicking As We Enter has the duo trading barbs over a bouncing dancehall-cum-boom bap hook, Nas’s impeccably rugged flow ricocheting off Marley’s tumble of melodic couplets. It’s a flash of gritty electricity amid an at times overly produced record. But while Marley’s production does have a tendency to feel a little canned, there are some indisputably powerful moments here. Cuts like Friends, Land of Promise and the punchy Nah Mean show this unlikely duo to posses a genuine chemistry.
DefJam/Universal
Ozi Batla
Wild Colonial
****
Herd and Astronomy Class cat Ozi Batla would have to be one of Australia’s most underrated MCs. Spend time with his long-overdue solo oeuvre Wild Colonial and you’ll witness a cadence so fluent, so natural and tight that it seems ridiculous that he’s not more widely celebrated. Part political rumination, part personal reflection, part celebratory hip hop statement, Wild Colonial is one of the stronger domestic releases you’ll hear this year. Ozi brings it back to the roots her, spitting rolling verses over Sandro’s dark, dusty, vinyl-scored boom bap and DJ Bonez’ nimble cuts. It’s razor-sharp traversal of this master rap craftsman’s expansive range.
Elefant Traks/Inertia
Dimlite
Prismic Tops
****
The likes of precocious LA kids Flying Lotus, Ras G and Nosaj Thing and Glasgow hoppers Hudson Mohawke and Rustie might be the names that come to mind when we think of the progressive instrumental hip hop mutations often referred to as a “wonky”, but the movement’s roots burrow much deeper. In fact, talk to any of today’s protagonists and they’ll point you squarely in the direction of one Mr Dimlite. His new mini-album Prismic Tops has the evidence of proto-wonk written all over it. The producer-vocalist’s melange of melted soul, static shrouds and skewed rhythmic reverie joins all the dots. An eye-opening release by a little-known iconoclast.
Now Again/Fuse
