CURIOSITY OVERLOAD: Death Grips- Fashion Week Instrumentals
Curiosity Overload is a segment where oddball projects are briefly discussed. Goofy mixtapes, one-off songs, bizarre collaborations, and free tracks are all subject to be featured here. The material discussed is often inessential, but not always.
Of course, everyone who sang praises of the aural assailants known as Death Grips (I myself being one of them) are looking forward to their “final” project, The Powers That B. This week, they dropped a mixtape of instrumentals that tease the impending end (or prank end) of one of the most interesting groups of the past 5 years.
Fashion Week is probably most useful as a tool to guess when The Powers That B will be released. The track titles spell out “JENNYDEATHWHEN”, which is of note because the followup to last year’s N***as on the Moon is titled Jenny Death. The title of the mixtape-Fashion Week- would also suggest that a release date around the forthcoming Fashion Week (Sometime in February).
The tape itself is probably worthwhile for Death Grips fanatics, but it provides little for those looking from the outside. A series of overlong instrumentals, Fashion Week provides little in the way of actual enjoyable music. Without MC Ride howling at the top of his lungs, Zach Hill and Skylander provide some vaguely interesting instrumentals. Of course, there are moments of wild abandon (The second Runway H dissolves into a crunchy guitar solo, the shining moment on the tape). However, the 14 tracks here are too sparse to really dissect. Instrumentals that would be brilliant for a minute or two stretch beyond their welcome.
These instrumentals are missing an element (Likely MC Ride, but perhaps not). Zach Hill’s drums feel drowned out, while the synthesizers repeat abrasive patterns with little effect. It’s an interesting set of unused (or maybe to-be-used) instrumentals that don’t accomplish much beyond teasing bigger, better things.
ALBUM REVIEW: Flying Lotus- You’re Dead!
Flying Lotus has long been one of the most interesting musicians. That sentence is vague because FlyLo has consistently avoided being pegged into any single sound. Sure, you could simplify everything he’s done by calling it “Instrumental Hip-Hop”. But what about his Jazz influences? His heavy worship of Funk and R&B? His Electronic side? His penchant for ambiance? Flying Lotus always switches it up, and he can be rather unpredictable. Every album Steven Ellison releases is different from the last, but every album is also distinctly Flying Lotus.
You’re Dead! is a drastic change from 2011’s gorgeously subdued Until the Quiet Comes, yet it also represents Flying Lotus’ best work yet. Bringing back some of the unhinged energy that made Comsogramma so distinctive, You’re Dead! combines Flying Lotus’ intense energy with a sound grounded in 70s fusion jazz. Late Miles Davis, particularly In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, are clear influences over the sound on this record. Flying Lotus even brings Fusion legend Herbie Hancock into the fold. The record, while still heavily ingrained with Hip-Hop, is full of saxophones and jazzy synths. It’s also appropriate that Thundercat, bassist extraordinaire and Flying Lotus’ de facto side kick, is on a health majority of the tracks here.
ALBUM REVIEW: Shabazz Palaces- Lese Majesty
The rise of experimental Hip-Hop these past few years was mostly in the hands of loud and abrasive groups that were just as influenced by Rock and Punk as they were by Hip-Hop. Death Grips, Ratking, and Clipping. have all made major strides in the past few years by crossing over into audiences that normally wouldn’t dabble in Hip-Hop. When Death Grips first saw a rise against punks and metal heads, Indie labels like XL Recordings and Sub-Pop began signing these acts. However, one of the major groups in this rise isn’t even remotely abrasive. This group is the delightfully weird Shabazz Palaces.
Hailing from Seattle, Shabazz Palces is made up of rapper Ishmael Butler (notably of Digable Planets) and producer Tendai Maraire. When they broke on the scene, their debut album Black Up was their opening statement. Though that album’s brand of wonky consciousness didn’t really do anything for me personally, it certainly gained them a lot of fans. In a year full of notable debuts, Shabazz Palaces certainly had one of the most memorable and influential. Three years later, the group has followed up that project with an album that is even more audacious and bold, and this renewed strength helps the group quite a bit.
Lese Majesty is a massive and sprawling Hip-Hopera; built up of 7 short suites, it’s one of the most ambitious Hip-Hop projects in recent memory. In a genre weighed down by derivatives and safety, it’s refreshing to find progressive experimentation that doesn’t simply throw in punk influences (as awesome as those experimenters are). However, as the album carries on, the individual songs begin to melt into each other. 18 tracks are easy to guffaw at initially, but the album is so hazily cohesive that it’s hard to actually notice. The free flowing songs revel in abstraction and cloudiness. While it certainly isn’t “Cloud Rap”, the atmospheric textures that permeate throughout every song certainly create an album that is beautifully hazy.
ALBUM REVIEW: Death Grips- N**gas on the Moon
Note: For purposes of sanity and artistic integrity, I will not be censoring the word “Nigga” in this review. I won’t use it outside of referring to the name of the project, and if this offends you, you should probably just read another article or something. Also, I’m entirely aware of the “incomplete” nature of this project, and I am reviewing these 8 tracks as their own independent entity. They may change in perspective when the other half of the project is revealed, but for now, these 8 tracks make up this project, and I’m reviewing these tracks on their own.
Death Grips are a band that revel in unpredictability and experimentation. They’ve been so randomly prolific over the past couple of years that people can forget how strange and bizarre their music is. When Niggas on the Moon dropped Sunday night (P.S.: There is nothing more exciting than when an artist randomly drops a project like this.), some people on Twitter groaned at the now “predictable” nature of Death Grips. However, as someone who still finds this band vital and entertaining, this project’s release-not even the project itself- was one of the best moments in music this year.
Death Grips, even though they have a general aesthetic, never do the same thing on their projects. Chastisement over their perceived “repetitiveness” may be on account of hype and the group’s innate divisive sound. While No Love Deep Web was a grimy and dirty dark project and Government Plates was an instrumental heavy project, Niggas on the Moon is their most poppy release since their 2012 grower The Money Store (A record that I once hated that I now mostly love). Part of this catchiness is a renewed emphasis on hooks, part of this rests in the renewed and newly reinvigorated MC Ride, and part of this is found in the Björk “samples”.
Björk’s involvement in the project has been the subject of much discussion, with the Icelandic singer claiming that the band used her vocals as a “Found object”. However, the use of her voice in fractured samples is one of the most effective sonic ideas that the band has ever pursued. There are plenty of songs that would have been great without the samples (Like the vicious Up My Sleeves and the glitchy Have a Sad Cum (Best Death Grips song title ever, by the way)). The modulation of electronics and MC Ride on these tracks works brilliantly, and it would make the project decent on its own. But Björk’s vocals add a strange ethereal quality to all of the songs they are prevalent on. One of the weakest tracks here, Say Hey Kid, is noticebly lacking in clear Björk samples (She may be there, but the sampling veils her voice too well). The way her beautiful soaring voice is broken into these shattering beats is fascinating and endlessly entertaining. It’s a collaboration that, on paper, doesn’t make sense. In execution, it works incredibly well.
On a song like Fuck Me Out, the warped and skittering sound of Björk’s crashing vocals creates a chaotic sound that echoes MC Ride’s panicking vocals. The same happens on the screeching Voila, with MC Ride calmly repeating “Voila!” over Björk’s breakneck vocals. The clashing synths on these tracks come in and out, taking a back seat to Björk most of the time. Zach Hill also brings a lot of great drumming to tracks like these. The breakdown towards the end of Voila has Hill violently losing it on the drum set in front of some horrifying screeching. It’s a song that, while not heavy on replay value, is absolutely fascinating to sit through.
Niggas on the Moon is a short project (because it’s part of a greater whole), and this does make it one of the most enjoyable Death Grips projects yet. The concentration of ideas works better here, with the unrelenting punch of the sound not wearing out. While it does lag a bit in the middle with songs that aren’t as great as the bookend tracks (Say Hey Kid is a bit bland and retreads former territory, Fuck Me Out doesn’t hold up with repeat listens). But the songs that surround the middle section are some of the best songs Death Grips have ever made. Up My Sleeves rivals Government Plates’ opener in terms of pure violent energy, while Big Dipper’s chaotic closing rivals Whatever I Want (Fuck Who’s Watching) and Hacker as the band’s best closer yet. The use of Björk samples throughout the album is also a welcome experiment, as it mostly works incredibly well. The electronic freakout towards the end of Big Dipper is absolutely fascinating, and the use of an unbroken Björk samples over the glitchy synths creates a moment that actually transcends into true beauty. Death Grips themselves still show that they’ve got more energy than most punk bands that still make music these days, and they’ve proven once again that they’re a forward thinking group that you shouldn’t mess with.
Summary: Niggas on the Moon is an energetic, short, and exciting project that once again brings a new idea to their sound that works brilliantly; the use of Björk throughout the 8 songs is some of the best sampling that the band has ever done.
Choice Cuts: Up My Sleeves, Black Quarterback, Big Dipper
Leftovers: Say Hey Kid
B+
You can stream the entire project below.
Vantage Point Music 