| It's been a while since something coming close to classic arose from any vestiges of the USA hip-hopper underground. A run of recent acclaimed discs has been too beset by macho ego (El-P), cultivated this-is-hip-hop-man-ism (Mr. Lif), bong-water (Reaching Quiet), or opacity (Themselves) to truly scale the heights of greatness previously visited in pretty-recent-actually days by the likes of, like, Aesop Rock (again and again), and Cannibal Ox, and the Anti-Pop Consortium and such. And or course, here, now, is Busdriver and Radioinactive with Daedelus kicking it out from their Los Angelean home in something close to, like, busted-out classicness. They're doing for hypermentalist short-attention spanned comic-toned rap-circus silliness what Sole's done for beards & ponytails as IT-guy-by-day/mic-rocker-by-night hip-hop fashion statement. Doseone may've thrown a sideways Themselves glance at anthemicism with that "shove that gun up your ass" refrain against the thug-overlordzzz of the hip-hop overground, but it don't have a stitch on The Weather's cartoon-music-ish sentiment-tapping sing-along "Just because the world runs on oil doesn't mean oil-men should run the world" on "Pen's Oil." It's the soulful center of this hilarious, bright, bizarre, totally joyous disc, in which 50's chrome-plated/ idealist-retrofuturism-fetishistic electro-monkey tinkerer/ nostalgia space-cadet Radioinactive make some seriously silly and droll spoken-words bits and busting them into bits and pieces re-collaged in lurid fashion. Over which, the respectively whiny/ butch voices of Radioinactive and Busdriver give off that great little/guy/big-guy comic air that reminds of those old cartoons in which the small yappy dog and the fist-pounding bulldog were best buds. Of course, amidst all this comedy, there are thoughts aired about American foreign policy, paranoia, fear of immigrants, sensationalist media reportage, the sex-centric nature of the internet, and gun-culture, in such spat-out to-and-fro free-feeling flows as "You are confusing the Mercedes Benz emblem for a peace-sign / And I'm mistaking that peace-sign for a crosshair." - Neu Music |
2XLP/Out Of Print