| So cLOUDDEAD is dead. We still remember when that batch of their six debut ten-inches, so beautifully designed; so alien, unique-sounding, first fell into our fat hands, and the dream - soon erased - that hip-hop, electronic music and alt-rock could be brought together and exploded apart, to chart a whole new universe of sound. It was never gonna happen of course - the hip-hoppers found it wasn't real enough for their teeny tiny, women-fearing minds; the electronica and indie kids? Well, there'd be something different along in a minute for them. Critics? Too pretentious (read: "too difficult to pigeon-hole"). After the album there was that Peel session - a record of complete and gleeful abstraction, finished off with a perfect pop song in "Physics of a Bicycle." And then the lost ten-inch, the cynical, embittered-with-the-industry Sound of a Handshake/This About the City - as angry as cLOUDDEAD could ever be, you think now. The sound of a cancer growing at the heart of this oddtrio of art school kids: Doseone, why? and odd nosdam. Now they've split, they all hate each other, and all we can look forward to is a million solo albums and collaborations, and boy is that probably going to suck. But they've left us wonderful memories: Mush and Big Dada's compilation of the early EPs, a live performance at London's 93 Feet East that nailed the audience to the floor, as the eerie throb odd nosdam's beats was joined by the orcish hum and chatter of Doseone and why?'s vocals. And, finally, this: a last document. A perfect obituary. Quit at the top - it's an idea that doesn't occur to enough bands, as Steve Albini once said. How to explain how good this album is? Well, take just one song at random - well, not at random, it's just our favourite. "The Teen Keen Skip," track two (following on from "Pop Song," another elliptical assault on rock'n'roll/hip-hop/the music business in general). If hearing that doesn't convert you, you're lost to us. It opens with a scratchy recording of a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, ever-so-posh lad reciting some dumb Edwardian rhyme about "Wine and cake for gentlemen... / And kisses for the lasses." Then, this voice from the past - the voice of a dead man, for all we know - is turned into a loop over which cLOUDDEAD rap about... what? The youth of today's bad manners? The jealousy that those who are no longer truly young - who feel their own death, however distant, creaking towards them - invariably feel towards those who are? Then some beats kick in, and they're totally OFF. The track spends the next minute or so clawing its way back to rhythmic equilibrium, but somehow, it doesn't matter. It's like when Fela Kuti would attempt one of his trumpet or piano solos, miss his cue completely, but leave the results on the record. Then there's a looped middle section and beautiful, ghostly, Wilsonian harmonies - already, we've had more ideas than most electronica or hip-hop albums contain in their entirety - before a massive, wobbling sample-synth line appears, flutters into life and takes glorious flight. Bright-eyed boy chirps up again, the curtains come down. Ten is full of such moments. There's why?'s chorus of "All this and more at a Pyramidi vidi shoot," on "The Velvet Ant." What does it mean? Fuck knows, but it feels great. The one full-on cLOUDDEAD plays pop moment, "Dead Dogs Two," which fits another lush pop tune to a chorus that's all wrong: "It's hard to bear the sight of two dogs dead / Under a sky so blue." "Physics of a Unicycle," a descendent, of course, of the pop song from the Peel session, sings a wistful tribute to Wilbur and Orville and their quest for the skies, then rattles into a lengthy, spirit-summoning dub coda. Then there's the menacing, sing-song thrum of "Rhymer's Only Room." The massive wall of harmonic noise that closes out the album, and cLOUDDEAD's career together... and then, fifteen minutes later... a bonus track. A message from beyond the grave? A pointless gesture? A return to the old skool? But the album... what can we say? Is it hip-hop? No, probably not. Is it pretentious? Yes, if you want to look at it like that. Is it the best album of the year so far? Yes. Certainly. - Post Everything |
1XLP/Out Of Print