| Before hearing cLOUDDEAD, I never would've, in a million years, used terms like "haunting," "psychedelic," "ambient," and "mercurial" to describe a hip-hop album. But when I heard the group's debut full-length, those were the only terms that seemed to fit. But whereas their debut was often as sprawling and unfocused as it was fascinating (mainly because it was a collection of ten-inch singles), Ten is a much more focused and concise, though perhaps slightly less ambitious, recording. Of course, terms like "focused" and "concise" are entirely relative when talking about cLOUDDEAD, thanks in large part to odd nosdam's sonic (de)constructions. odd nosdam pilfers a number of antiquated and offbeat sources, resulting in a number of memorable moments, such as the powerdrill solo and British children's singalong that coexist on "The Teen Keen Skip." Or the "squeaky shoes on creaking floorboards" squelches that serve as the beats for "The Velvet Ant." But there are also subtler, more restrained elements as well, like the drowsily somber atmospherics that drift through "3 Twenty" and "Our Name." Ten manages to balance being wildly unpredictable and perplexing with being accessible and intriguing (the only other hip-hop artist that comes close to this feat is Soul-Junk... maybe). Just don't ask me how they do it. Even after reading the production notes, which are just as fragmentary as any of Doseone and why?'s lyrics, I'm still at a loss to really explain how it works. It just does. - Opus |
1XLP/Out Of Print