How the mighty have fallen. Not that Andre Afram Asmar might really beconsidered mighty, but his last record for Mush was a beautiful mashupof hip-hop and middle eastern instrumentals that worked on any numberof levels and preserved a sense of genuine respect for all of thesounds it culled. Enter Circus, the MC who manages to take AAA'sproduction and run it into the ground with half-witted rhymes and adeadpan vocal delivery that recalls a suburban, middle-agedbusinessperson reciting a 'rap' in some corporate skill-buildingseminar. The album has a loose theme that revolves around alienabduction, conspiracy theories, and the Bush administration'swar-waging in the middle east. Unfortunately, the serious themes andstupid themes are given just about equal billing, but its all played ina straight-faced way to render none of it funny or effective. The beatsand samples that Circus drowns out might be worthwhile on their own,but it's impossible to separate the voice from the songs. I'll neverquite understand how people who have an ear for quality music and deftMCs can listen to something like Gawd Bless the Faceless Cowardsand feel that it's adequate or even fun to listen to. Inane rhymesdelivered flatly over beats and samples about UFOs might make for a funparty record amongst friends, but only really close friends who aren'ttoo critical, or who are really drunk. Someone got in the car with mewhen this record was on and the first question he asked was 'is this ademo someone sent you?' No, but maybe if someone had heard the demofirst, they could have steered it somewhere productive. As it is, steerclear.
Two new shows just for you. We have squeezed out two extended release episodes for this weekend to get you through this week. They contain mostly new songs but there's also new issues from the vaults. The first show features music from Rider/Horse, Mint Field, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Anastasia Coope, ISAN, Stone Music, La Securite, Bark Psychosis, Jon Rose, Master Wilburn Burchette, Umberto, Wand, Tim Koh, Sun An, and Memory Drawings. The second episode has music by Laibach, Melt-Banana, Chuck Johnson, X, K. Yoshimatsu, Dorothy Carter, Pavel Milyakov, Violence Gratuite, Mark Templeton, Dummy, Endon, body / negative, Midwife, Alberto Boccardi, Divine. Cow in Maui from Veronika in Vienna. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images! |