After a rising loop the record begins: “Yo it’s therapy, most of us that I know got problems / Why you think we frowning when we puttin’ out these albums?” It’s an ideal manifesto for The Side Effect EP, a concise introduction to the potent concoction of misgivings, neuroses, anxieties and swagger to come. Though the unspoken specter hanging over the album is a commercial failure, certain effects still persist without intent long enough to develop into rich ironies. In that regard it remains artistically successful. That rapper Side Effect delivers that opening line with a slurred delivery and vocal timbre that could easily have been pulled from a G-Unit album is perhaps the richest of them.

In hip-hop records, the subject of ambitions is omnipresent… career ambitions, street ambitions, dashed ambitions. But never until this excellent EP by rapper Side Effect and production crew Dumhi have I ever encountered the flip-side of this: dealing with a lack of ambition, of trying to define limits to ambitions. This is a radical move to make in an art form built almost entirely on stretching the confines of hyperbole.

Dealing with failure so persistently and with such little bitterness, Side Effect becomes a vocal persona of endearingly small observations, little twists which surprise in the stream of lyrics continuing nearly unabated for the EP’s duration. The production by Dumhi manages to be catchy but unobtrusive; it’s a good bait to draw one into Side Effect’s lyrical obsessions, but never aggressively enough to drown them out. Drum effects are used to interesting ends, particularly on “Murder Bot” when a modulated bass drum gives a sense of both continuity and disorientation.

The bells on the track are revealed at the end to have been a sped-up Jefferson Starship sample, a pretty thematically appropriate one, especially leading into standout track “Alive”, wherein the conflict of the album is brought out most clearly.

“What you want to be?”

“Alive.”

“You gotta want more than that out of life.”

Maybe just believing in miracles isn’t enough to get by…

RIYL: Dangerdoom, Kanye West, Dangermouse, Madlib, G-Unit, Ghostface Killah, Madvillain, Das Racist

Dumhi – Therapy

Bandcamp / BUY

The post Dumhi – The Side Effect EP (2011) appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

Nostalgia, always a component in hip hop’s later fare, has taken a new flavor of late. Nostalgia in ‘90s hip hop was largely reactionary, a response to the breakout popularity of the gangsta rap genre. Their nostalgia for groups like The Juice Crew and earlier hip-hop came off like sour grapes. More recently, the flavor of nostalgia is more in the general direction of youth, and particularly such disposable cultural products as cult movies and Saturday morning cartoons.

Which is where we come to Teenburger, which may represent the only time to date any Obscure Sound writer could furnish the heavily relative string of words “Canadian Hip-Hop Supergroup”. While I doubt most readers have heard of Ghettosocks, Timbuktu, or DJ Jorun Bombay, these are some of the most promising lights in Canadian hip-hop, with Ghettosocks even scoring a Juno nomination for Treat of the Day, a solo effort. Both Ghettosocks and Timbuktu have hyperactive flows, heavily rhythmic and well intoned so that, even when verses have no point or punch lines drop flat, they keep up the frenetic party-ready back-beat and film dialogue samples so numerous and well integrated they practically serve as a third rapper.

There is a refreshing lack of angst on their new album Burgertime. This feeling of refreshment is nearly enough to obscure the failure of each MC, their inability to stake out a distinctive identity or reach a novel conception of either childhood or ‘80s pop culture, the two motifs most commonly circled around on the disc. Things are assumed to be better simply because they occurred in the ‘80s, with the most embarrassing line coming on album closer “Drunk in the Sun”: “I been skippin’ school with the crew since way when Reagan was in office / Today we gettin’ paid, which means a whole lot ‘cause in the ‘80s they had better economics.” This may be the first ever recorded endorsement of either Ronald Reagan or trickle-down economics on a hip-hop record.

Burgertime is made to be put on repeat at block parties. Quite literally, the same sound plays on the end of the last track as the start of the first, daring the listener to put the disc on continuous repeat. They very well may; the beats are excellent, the production amiably unrelenting, and the rhymes competent if undistinguished. Some clever lines can be discerned in the shuffle, though mostly the rappers obsessively stick to framing all their metaphors and imagery in the VH1 Western canon.

The quality track by track is entirely dependent on the quality of the production. Thankfully, this only falters on “Kill Lincoln”, which repeats the same uninteresting horn sample ad nauseam. Highlights include “Wake Up”, which weds warm whole-note horn samples with various vocal samples cut and chopped to perfection. “Halloween Special”, the melody of which offers an intriguingly superficial reinterpretation of the melody used for Eminem’s “Drug Ballad”, is just as technically impressive. Even if you choose not to put it on continuous repeat, Burgertime is well worth a spin for fans of ambitiously geared hip-hop.

RIYL: Edan, Eternia, Dangermouse and Gemini, Wale, Dangerdoom

Teenburger – Wake Up (feat. Jorun Bombay)

Teenburger – Party Scramble!

Bandcamp

The post Teenburger – Burgertime (2011) appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.