| Traversing the outer-outer-limits of hip-hop, indie-pop, ambient introspection and blender solos, cLOUDDEAD's 2001 debut was that proverbial other-other-shit. Follow-up Ten focuses their sonic splatter-paintings into demented, eight-track-decimating "pop" songs which - although blender solos still present - is Another Green World entirely. Nasal abstract machinegun Doseone, basemental mini-Beck why? and Negativland-meets-Schooly D sampleslayer odd nosdam make melancholy noise that reflects their art-school backgrounds and love of Boards of Canada, dream-Kraut noisesters Flying Saucer Attack and golden-era hip-hop - all the time whacking Styrofoam for bass-drum sounds, building melodies around skipping records and gleaning samples from fleamarket tape spools. Schizophrenic rhythmic whispers and staccato Burroughsian ejaculations abound ("Yo! Two small girls and a haaaandful of dressed men / They walk a cage full of goats 'cross a B-ball court / Goats with a rectangular iris," is just the tip of the Doseberg), but as cLOUDDEAD's members will attest, the album's contents are poetry with beats as supporting columns, not musical beat poetry. A brilliant swan song; um, a dead swan without rectangular irises nor a strawberry in its throat. - CMJ |
1XLP/Out Of Print