| Who knows why, but when I first heard of Antimc, I thought this dude was a snotty rapper a la Eminem. Some brawler, shot caller. Weird, becuase once you hear the glorious concoction of mostly instrumental (I guess that's where the Antimc bit comes in), noisy, psychadelic, LA hip-hop, it all makes sense. Matthew Alsberg's debut record on Mush brings an essence of the glory days of what I consider classic Mush material - cLOUDDEAD, Aesop Rock, Jel, all those complex sampling hip-hop wreckers. Part hip-hop, part instrumental garage punk, It's Free, But It's Not Cheap straight-up rocks. Post-post hip-hop? Kinda, but forget about moody introspection, he's from LA after all and it's a balls-out celebration of the joy of music. The beats, shattered guitars, twisted samples, and acid synth lines are expertly composed as if it were a live band. Although the record was written entirely by Matthew Alsberg (with vocal contributions from MCs Busdriver, Cadence Weapon, Saafir and vocalists Anthony Anzalone, Fog, and Mark Mitchell) he's currently touring with multi-tasking LA DJs Desert Eagles and Them Jeans as his backing band. Any you lucky lot who might be heading to Texas for this year's SXSW can catch them live. He's also heading out on tour with the style-flipping RJD2 and coincidently, if his Beatles-esque latest effort The Third Hand was too much of a departure for your dusty hip-hop addled minds, this could very easily slip into its plave. To end on a simple note, let's just say this album comes recommended - One Week To Live |
1XLP/Out Of Print