| I'd got to that point when you think, ok, it's mid-November, I won't hear anything particularly impressive until 2004. And then I heard Omid's album Monolith, out from Mush. Omid is, alongside Daedelus, one of the most exciting production talents to have flowered this year and Monolith consists of half mad instrumentals, and half vocal tracks. And to coin a cliche which I wish I could use more often, he has more ideas in one track than many producers manage over an album. "Up" starts off with a ragga beat, but quickly morphs into a collision of a rather pretty classical piece, with lovely strings, and some crunchy blippy beats that wouldn't be out of place on a Bjork album. The posse cut, "Live from Tokyo" has a really sick growling bassline, chit-chattery percussion and a quirky little ascending brass line and if you're an indie hip-hop nut, you'll wet yourself at hearing Slug, Aceyalone, Murs and others on a single cut. "Sound of the Sitar" is obviously an Eastern thing, and is an instrumental that sounds a bit like Ammoncontact remixing Kardinall Offishall's wonderful "Belly Dancer," all weird lo-fi clunky-funky Orientalism. Nice. "Double Header" has Buck 65 with a wonderfully gravelly vocal performance and some fine lyrics, while Omid underpins a haunting fairground organ sound with rolling funky drums and bass. "Research" is a pounding bassline groove of an instrumental which features some freaky samples from Jean-Jacques Perrey's Mood Indigo album. "I'm Just a Bill" is almost Basement Jaxx-esque in its car-crash collision of styles, with the overall feel being a modern Blaxploitation track with mad fairground noises. "Always Being Born" is the only hip-hop instrumental I've heard this year to feature a didgeridoo, and is a lovely downtempo piece. I really love this album, it's dazzlingly inventive, but never at the expense of listenability and it has something for everyone, featuring many of the hot underground emcees around right now, but even if you don't give a shit about them, the bottom line is it just sounds good. Omid has a knack for understanding his vocalists and shaping suitable music around them. Another of those albums that demands your attention - buy buy buy! - Art Rocker |
2XLP/Out Of Print