(Sub Pop)
Over the last five or
so years hip-hop seemed to have made a lot of space for the stranger
and weirder side of the genre to show. Alongside the rise of bedroom
producers like Lil B or Odd Future and acts like Death Grips that
show that there are till many ways to approach, interpret and
reinvent the genre. Shabazz Palacees are made up of Ishmael Butler of
Digable Planets and Tendai Maraire, two artists that have been
peddling their own unique takes of hip hop for over two decades now,
well before this new outsider hip hop emerged, and manage to create
some of the most unique music around..
Shabazz Palaces seem to
have as much in common with the cosmic stargazing of Sun Ra or sci-fi
techno of Drexiya than they do with contemporary hip hop. The group's
debut, 2011's Black Up, appeared with song structures that
avoided conventions with dense electronic influenced beats. It
balanced a left field with the approachable as glittering synths and
samples twisted beyond easy recognition make for an alien feel while
synthesizer bass lines and treated vocals hint at a synthetic and
artificial world. Shabazz Palaces music aims for a point where the
line between technology and biology is blurred, and they're getting
even closer on their follow up Lese Majesty.
Forerunner Foray
features the kind of electronic futurism of acts from the Hyperdub
roster in the blips and bleeps that rise and fall over the beat,
broken apart by soulful female vocals stretched out to a crawl. They
Come In Gold hits harder and stranger, a vocal is twisted into a
melody under lines like 'we converse in ancient languages' as
they map out a psychedelic interstellar journey.
Lese Majesty's
beats flit between the loose and easy J Dilla style to the rigid drum
machine beats. #CAKE opts for machine noises and 4/4 808 whilst
Colluding Oligarchs stumbles and lurches forward with an off-centre
rolling drum beat. The way the duo use samples isn't just as a
backdrop for the lyrics, they feel integral to the immersion that
Lese Majesty demands, as sounds often swallow up the voices or
at least take equal space in the dense production. The album blends
together into one ever-changing shape, retreating then re-emerging in
a new form, MindGlitch Keytar TM Theme appears like a lost post-punk
record, jagged and uneasy before Motion Sickness floats forth almost
beat-less, bleeps of spaceship computers abound, over a bass line
light enough to sound like it exists in zero gravity.
Listening to the album
is taking a trip to another world that I don't fully understand, song
titles and lyrics are often impenetrable, but a definitely enjoy my
time there. Lese Majesty is an intricate and detailed place
that demands that you invest your time to explore. Amongst a style
that has embraced lo-fi grit, noise and experimentation more than
ever in recent years, Shabazz Palaces shows a pair of musicians that
can do strange and make it sincere in a way that outs the newcomers
to shame.
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