| Remember that kid in high school that got invited to some parties and was spurned from others? Yeah, you know, that guy who was kind of likeable, but he just wouldn't stop talking. The things he would have to say would sound completely random and self-conscious all the time? Yeah, that guy. The thing about him that made it annoying was that underneath all the seemingly arbitrary speech, he actually made a lot of sense. Despite his cryptic and uncomfortable truth telling, he always had girls with secret crushes on him, because his irritating mannerisms always had a facade of humor. I wonder what that guy is doing now? Well, Awol One is one of those guys and his medium before Slanguage was hip-hop. The Los Angeles native's fiercely independent undertakings include last year's appetizer-sized Propaganda, where he teamed up with fellow Massmen member Fat Jack, and 2000's brilliant collaboration with Daddy Kev, Souldoubt. Slowly but surely he has been going down the path of delightful esotericism that his fellow Massman, Busdriver, has. Slanguage is the current culmination of that journey. The album itself is an odyssey into the subconscious of both Awol and Daddy Kev. What comes out is a hip-hop approximation of free jazz that creates a relatively unique landscape, even for the world of avant garde hip-hop. The anchor of all the madness is producer Daddy Kev who throws in the kitchen sink to erect a proper background for Awol's off-the-cuff ruminations. In the first half of the record, Awol makes it clear: "It's not for everybody." Daddy Kev pulls out all the stops on this record. His instrumentals were created first, and they sound like odd nosdam collages with a much longer attention span and a lot more jazz and classical music juxtapositions. The tracks sans vocals would make a supremely interesting instrumental collage on their own. The freeness of associations is staggering, with drummed hip-hop beats phasing in and out of the mix, going from a mix of orchestral sampling to congas, jazz snaps and back again. Added to the glorious insanity is the "free" scratching of D-Styles, who uses a plethora of sources from which to scratch, most notably opera vocals. Over the pleasurable clamor comes "that guy" Awol One. Convinced that this is a job he was made for, Awol spits out stream-of-consciousness hip-hop poetry and random thoughts. He feels at home enough in this relatively unexplored landscape to declare: "this is your audio bible." Throughout, Awol raps, speaks, and sings assertively and calmly while interacting playfully with Kev's joyfully jagged scenery. He talks and agrees with spoken samples and gives running commentary on Kev's work. One particularly loopy classical sample prompted Awol to note that it sounded like cartoon characters "beating the shit out of each other." Other times he slips easily into Psychedelic brain-disconnect poetry, tackling curses ("You play the music, I'll lay the curse") and black magic with the flair of an old guy on a street corner. Mostly, Awol just speaks and sings about what's on his mind at the time... monster movies, television, hip-hop ("Of course every emcee thinks he's the best, of course every b-boy thinks he's the best!"), high school love, god... you name it. Obviously, there will be a large number of purists on all sides that will hate this record. Hip-hoppers will find it too abstract, and free jazzers will resent the sampling and Awol's tongue-in-cheek ruminations. Is it sad that it makes me so happy to know a record will piss people off? - Winter Mittens |
2XLP/Out Of Print