A
Anonymous
Guest
sweet new dalek is out. heres a review from pitchfork 7.8 out of 10
title: Asphalt to Eden
The subversive indie hip-hop outfit Dälek return from a hiatus with a revamped lineup and a newfound confidence and profundity.
given hip hop's longevity, global reach, and power as a paradigm-changing social force, it's still relatively rare when rap artists make a splash with a coherent, actionable left-wing message. Of course, Public Enemy and KRS-One gave audiences a new vocabulary for questioning the power structure, which the majority of hip-hop acts rail against in some form or another anyway. Today, we can point to several contemporary acts—The Coup, Immortal Technique, Killer Mike, etc.—whose rhetoric follows the same path, but none can claim to be as musically subversive as Dälek, an outfit that almost two decades ago fulfilled hip-hop's potential to exist in an alt/underground/experimental universe while staying true to its roots.
Dälek (a play on the word "dialect") parlayed atypical hip-hop inspirations—My Bloody Valentine, The Velvet Underground, etc.—into sumptuous billows of noise. Groundbreaking albums like 2002's From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots, 2005's Absence, 2007's Abandoned Language, and 2009's Gutter Tactics combined the brutalistic drive of industrial music, the density and grain of heavy guitar music, the painterly textures of ambient music, and the thumping backbeat groove of classic hip-hop. And while it makes sense that the band landed on Mike Patton's Ipecac label and on stages with the likes of the Melvins, Tool, and Godflesh, it bears repeating what an ongoing accomplishment it has been for Dälek to break down barriers while keeping both feet planted firmly in hip-hop.
On Asphalt for Eden, Dälek returns with a revamped lineup after going on hiatus in 2010 upon the departure of co-founding producer Oktopus (Alap Momin). That the new incarnation—frontman/bandleader MC Dälek (Will Brooks), longtime Dälek guitarist-turned-producer Mike Manteca, and DJ rEk (Rudy Chicata), the group's original DJ back in '95-'96—manages to craft yet another hybrid of hip-hop with outside elements isn't especially surprising. It isn't even necessarily all that surprising that Dälek 2.0 goes a long way towards reinventing its sound while still retaining its essence. But no matter how used to this group's agility we've become, it doesn't make the step forward it takes on this new material any less impressive.
Not unlike Gutter Tactics, the backbeat on Asphalt for Eden is far less monolithic and bass-heavy, often sounding like a beat filtered through a haze of static, hip-hop as a remnant of a civilization long expired several light years away. This time, though, Manteca and Brooks (who also produces) dial back the blast-furnace intensity of that familiar Dälek wall of sound and opt instead for more delicate layers that verge on minimalist ambient electronica. But make no mistake: nothing is actually missing here. In fact, the stripped-down composition of the music arguably gives it more power than Dälek's previous work. Manteca and Brooks weave together layers of sounds that they atomize into overlapping clouds of fine mist. And because they leave so much space in their arrangements, the new material reveals Dälek's ear for harmony in ways we might have felt but hadn't necessarily heard before, because the older albums packed such a strong punch in the gut.
As usual, Brooks addresses the encroaching forces of human control—big business, globalization, totalitarianism, post-colonial American hegemony, war, etc. This time, though, rather than make didactic statements, he focuses on the internal angst of the individual coming to terms with and trying to navigate an increasingly dehumanizing landscape. And in another fresh twist on previous work, the sounds on Asphalt for Eden have an almost playful tone that dithers between ominous and optimistic. An Aldous Huxley spoken-word sample over a spectral ambient throb on "Masked Laughter (Nothing's Left)," for example, recalls Orbital's plea to collective human awakening on their 2012 album Wonky.
Filled as it is with so many gorgeous colors, Asphalt for Eden could have underscored actor Rutger Hauer's iconic "Tears in rain" monologue at the end of Blade Runner. In fact, the music becomes all the more moving when it directly contrasts Brooks' chilling shards of imagery. The dulcet electronic ripples of "Masked Laughter," for example, conclude with a repeating loop of the word "terrorism." If there were a manga based on dystopian sweatshop-induced urban poverty and that, in turn, were turned into an anime film, you couldn't do better than Asphalt for Eden for a soundtrack.
Brooks spent five years away from Dälek fronting the comparatively traditional rap group iconAclass (and doing remixes for the likes of Black Heart Procession, Zombi, Palms, Broken Flowers, etc) but he takes a huge leap on his return to Dälek, which sounds not only revived here but permanently altered not unlike a friend who comes home after years abroad—or even from a traumatic experience like, say, prison. In other words, the profundity here comes across in the most restrained gestures.
Though Brooks opts for a more oblique lyrical approach on these new songs, the modern horrors that populate Dälek's previous albums are never too far off, and the foreboding sense of the world going to hell in a handbasket hovers over your shoulder the entire time. The song "Guaranteed Struggle," for example, contains a sample of Brooks delivering a disconnected verse fragment about "f***[ing] around and watch[ing] the whole world crumblin'"—basically, the story of our lives for anyone who can afford to spend leisure time on music or entertainment in 2016. But the more ambiguous emotional notes in the album's sonic makeup at times parallel the more subtle blossoming of consciousness also unfolding on the world stage. Dälek took hip-hop into new stylistic realms before. This time, although Brooks and company may not have specifically intended as much, on Asphalt for Eden, hip hop ascends into the noosphere.
ive been a big fan since the begining
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvo0oKxQTjY&list=PLpl5-t6ClQx9WEnUh3MmmrF6ppEKHqqRM
title: Asphalt to Eden
The subversive indie hip-hop outfit Dälek return from a hiatus with a revamped lineup and a newfound confidence and profundity.
given hip hop's longevity, global reach, and power as a paradigm-changing social force, it's still relatively rare when rap artists make a splash with a coherent, actionable left-wing message. Of course, Public Enemy and KRS-One gave audiences a new vocabulary for questioning the power structure, which the majority of hip-hop acts rail against in some form or another anyway. Today, we can point to several contemporary acts—The Coup, Immortal Technique, Killer Mike, etc.—whose rhetoric follows the same path, but none can claim to be as musically subversive as Dälek, an outfit that almost two decades ago fulfilled hip-hop's potential to exist in an alt/underground/experimental universe while staying true to its roots.
Dälek (a play on the word "dialect") parlayed atypical hip-hop inspirations—My Bloody Valentine, The Velvet Underground, etc.—into sumptuous billows of noise. Groundbreaking albums like 2002's From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots, 2005's Absence, 2007's Abandoned Language, and 2009's Gutter Tactics combined the brutalistic drive of industrial music, the density and grain of heavy guitar music, the painterly textures of ambient music, and the thumping backbeat groove of classic hip-hop. And while it makes sense that the band landed on Mike Patton's Ipecac label and on stages with the likes of the Melvins, Tool, and Godflesh, it bears repeating what an ongoing accomplishment it has been for Dälek to break down barriers while keeping both feet planted firmly in hip-hop.
On Asphalt for Eden, Dälek returns with a revamped lineup after going on hiatus in 2010 upon the departure of co-founding producer Oktopus (Alap Momin). That the new incarnation—frontman/bandleader MC Dälek (Will Brooks), longtime Dälek guitarist-turned-producer Mike Manteca, and DJ rEk (Rudy Chicata), the group's original DJ back in '95-'96—manages to craft yet another hybrid of hip-hop with outside elements isn't especially surprising. It isn't even necessarily all that surprising that Dälek 2.0 goes a long way towards reinventing its sound while still retaining its essence. But no matter how used to this group's agility we've become, it doesn't make the step forward it takes on this new material any less impressive.
Not unlike Gutter Tactics, the backbeat on Asphalt for Eden is far less monolithic and bass-heavy, often sounding like a beat filtered through a haze of static, hip-hop as a remnant of a civilization long expired several light years away. This time, though, Manteca and Brooks (who also produces) dial back the blast-furnace intensity of that familiar Dälek wall of sound and opt instead for more delicate layers that verge on minimalist ambient electronica. But make no mistake: nothing is actually missing here. In fact, the stripped-down composition of the music arguably gives it more power than Dälek's previous work. Manteca and Brooks weave together layers of sounds that they atomize into overlapping clouds of fine mist. And because they leave so much space in their arrangements, the new material reveals Dälek's ear for harmony in ways we might have felt but hadn't necessarily heard before, because the older albums packed such a strong punch in the gut.
As usual, Brooks addresses the encroaching forces of human control—big business, globalization, totalitarianism, post-colonial American hegemony, war, etc. This time, though, rather than make didactic statements, he focuses on the internal angst of the individual coming to terms with and trying to navigate an increasingly dehumanizing landscape. And in another fresh twist on previous work, the sounds on Asphalt for Eden have an almost playful tone that dithers between ominous and optimistic. An Aldous Huxley spoken-word sample over a spectral ambient throb on "Masked Laughter (Nothing's Left)," for example, recalls Orbital's plea to collective human awakening on their 2012 album Wonky.
Filled as it is with so many gorgeous colors, Asphalt for Eden could have underscored actor Rutger Hauer's iconic "Tears in rain" monologue at the end of Blade Runner. In fact, the music becomes all the more moving when it directly contrasts Brooks' chilling shards of imagery. The dulcet electronic ripples of "Masked Laughter," for example, conclude with a repeating loop of the word "terrorism." If there were a manga based on dystopian sweatshop-induced urban poverty and that, in turn, were turned into an anime film, you couldn't do better than Asphalt for Eden for a soundtrack.
Brooks spent five years away from Dälek fronting the comparatively traditional rap group iconAclass (and doing remixes for the likes of Black Heart Procession, Zombi, Palms, Broken Flowers, etc) but he takes a huge leap on his return to Dälek, which sounds not only revived here but permanently altered not unlike a friend who comes home after years abroad—or even from a traumatic experience like, say, prison. In other words, the profundity here comes across in the most restrained gestures.
Though Brooks opts for a more oblique lyrical approach on these new songs, the modern horrors that populate Dälek's previous albums are never too far off, and the foreboding sense of the world going to hell in a handbasket hovers over your shoulder the entire time. The song "Guaranteed Struggle," for example, contains a sample of Brooks delivering a disconnected verse fragment about "f***[ing] around and watch[ing] the whole world crumblin'"—basically, the story of our lives for anyone who can afford to spend leisure time on music or entertainment in 2016. But the more ambiguous emotional notes in the album's sonic makeup at times parallel the more subtle blossoming of consciousness also unfolding on the world stage. Dälek took hip-hop into new stylistic realms before. This time, although Brooks and company may not have specifically intended as much, on Asphalt for Eden, hip hop ascends into the noosphere.
ive been a big fan since the begining
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvo0oKxQTjY&list=PLpl5-t6ClQx9WEnUh3MmmrF6ppEKHqqRM