Review Summary: Sticky, Like Nearly Dried Paint...
A hamburger roll. Plain and simple; potato maybe. Nothing spectacular or very interesting in and of itself. Add a beef patty, cheese, pickles, and put it all together. That is called a cheeseburger. A much more interesting entity, but it still lacks the grandeur of something truly memorable or unique. An ostrich burger with half-sour pickles, muenster cheese, bacon, barbecue sauce, and mayonnaise on a toasted sour dough roll. That's something to be remembered because it's not something that can be found on a menu; it breaks the formulas that burger joints try to push on the consumer. cLOUDDEAD's
Ten is that burger but taking a step forward. It's something that is actually unique, something many artists today proclaim their sound to be but few actually deliver.
cLOUDDEAD is a musical group consisting of Doseone (Adam Drucker), Why? (Yoni Wolf), and Odd Nosdam (David Madson) each of providing vocals and music, though the first two are primarily the
MCs while Nosdam primarily provides the music. What is clearly evident with a listen to only a few tracks off
Ten, however, is that MCs isn't a very apt title. Though there is some rapping, most of the album pushes "ill spitting" to the waste-side and rather goes for a back and forth approach oftentimes repeating lines with different effects. Along with this unique aproach, the lyrics are not the sorts of hip-hop status quo. Most of the time, they deliver a stream-of-consciousness approach or political allusions, both of which allow the listener to interpret what is actually being said on his or her own. Whether this be on the reactionary trilogy to the post 9/11 world offered in "Sun of a Gun," "Rifle Eyes," and "Dead Dogs Two" or the imagery laden lines of "The Teen Keen Skip." Though the reasons behind the words aren't always clear, the words have a strange way of being extremely catchy and powerful while making on paper making little to no sense at all. "Rhymer's Only Room" may leave one scratching his or her head about what is being said, but the way it builds with help from the excellent beat-boxing and sound-scape created makes it an awe-inspiring listen.
That leads to the key of this album. The music. Layer after layer of both sonically altered sounds by instruments, everyday noises, samples and even voices creates something both at times breathtakingly beautiful and extremely catchy. The prime example is "Physics of a Unicycle." Samples abound, the simple beat may hold the song together in the beginning, but when that beat changes, the repetition of the title of the song enters alongside a beautiful sound-scape, and repeated, rapped lines are soon delivered quietly at first but that soon grow, that song takes on an indescribable power. This all combines and leads to a surreal explosion that is rarely matched by any music of any medium, but to be on a hip- hop album is refreshing to say the least.
cLOUDDEAD's
Ten is a marvel. Though proclaimed a hip-hop album by its makers, it is as much an indie or electronica album, political or stream-of-consciousness exploration as it is a hip-hop album. It plays by no rules, something that is both a positive and a drawback. With a burger, you might have to try some weird combos, a lot of which you won't enjoy, to finally come up with that perfect, unique burger that lays the smack-down on all other burgers. This album probably won't sit well upon a first listen, or a fifth, or even tenth. That is because it's so different from what is expected in the medium that it's just too much to handle without time. With time, however, the listener comes to realize that this is what hip-hop, or, in a much broader sense, music in general should be. Unique, yet in ways, mildly familiar; joyous with a precursor of melancholy; and simple and catchy yet meticulously layered and incomprehensible.
Are you prepared to give a guided tour
of your planet to something like... God,
to speak on behalf of all phylum,
from single-celled to sapien ?
Are all your cells in agreement?
The empty space between distant airs doesn't care...
-The Teen Keen Skip
