| There are some who find Mush's directions in hip-hop insufferable and, more importantly, impure. Hip-hop as it has typically been savored sits low to the ground - the weight in its ass, in its bumping, floor-grazing bass. So, understandably, the results of the collaboration between squirrelly rappers Busdriver and Radioinactive and toy tinkerer/beat producer Daedelus could seem strange indeed. The Weather's weight isn't in the ass at all - it's in the head, pitched up, pitched way forward, and prancing dizzily to its own bizarre beat. It's Ernie and Bert in the bathtub meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's wrong. It's awesome. Mush goodness tends to come in a somewhat nasal rap, delivered in the kind of voice you get when you inhale a head full of air instead of a belly, in a rush of air more akin to a sneeze than a deep grunt. Busdriver and Radioinactive pile their helium-hop rhymes on top of each other, each one-upping the next in a high sing-song, freakazoid free-association that's half nursery rhyme, half really trippin'. Radioinactive's delivery slips by straight and otter-like, forming an effective counterpoint to Busdriver's grander ringmaster elocutions. Daedelus, whose previous solo work, Invention, showcases his wonky charm, frames the lyrical spasms with a carnivalesque production that seems a compression of show tunes, wind-up toys and vaudeville organs. He lays down fizzy beats that are simpatico with the loopy breathlessness of his vocalists, refraining from stepping on their light toes, but unafraid to match them, absurd charm for absurd charm. "Fine for a Robot" finds the three artists in fine form, passing the disjoint around between them, with Busdriver singing with a wistful earnestness about the "kiss of the floppy disk" and internet love: "She loves me vicariously, and I die in various manners and places / I wish she that she loved me / She loves herself, only / Her lights bulbs need changing." Daedelus's off-kilter shoop shoop tweaks the nostalgic and the virtual simultaneously, and combined with Busdriver's more plaintive vocals, Radioinactive's tongue-in-cheek macking "I really like robot girls, cause they're wicked awesome, and I wanna kick it wit you often / It's poppin," drives the punchline of the disconnection home all the more. The Weather is aptly named - this collaboration never sits still for long and demands the listener be prepared for all kinds of freak occurrences. It's a refreshing take on hip-hop. Who needs purity when a neon bubblebath is far more fun? - Splendid |
2XLP/Out Of Print