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MH-230 cLOUDDEAD - Ten  Ten finds cLOUDDEAD building on all of the elements that defined their debut: razor sharp vocal interplay, quirky found sound samples, ambient drone dreamscapes, lyrics that walk the line between observational and confessional, and a fair share of nosdam drums slowed to a growl. Doseone and why? never take the cheap way out. Their lyrics may range from blurry and buried to sharp and surfaced, but each and every line has meaning. The music and production are collaborative, featuring Doseone's knack for bottling emotion, why's self-taught multi-instrumentalist efforts, and odd nosdam's flair for borrowed genius. Individually, Doseone, why? and odd nosdam are as prolific and fearless as anyone in today's new music scene, but together as cLOUDDEAD they are able to create music that captures all of the promise of their individual talents in an unequaled sound. |
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| Reviews Summary |
| All must hail - BBC / A brilliant swan song - CMJ / Genuinely original - Uncut / Catchy and sublime - Under The Radar / Unquestionably, cLOUDDEAD have arrived - Pitchfork / It’s golden - Magnet / Original and eccentric - Alarm / Strident and sophisticated - Grooves / Promising and satisfying – Stylus |
| I don't really know what to say about this threesome, except they're original and eccentric. Combining hip-hop and indie-folk, as you can imagine, produces highly experimental results, and especially so on Ten. Unlike their previous full-length, there are no prank phone calls, straight-up emceeing, or Goonies Nintendo theme music to speak of on Ten but it proves to be a worthwhile listen nonetheless. Those familiar with why?'s Oaklandazulasylum solo CD will embrace this disc's content as it isn't completely different, just more jagged, dark, and avant garde. Flowing seamlessly between one noisy track to the next, Ten works well as a whole, though the stream of consciousness type lyrics sometimes seem like they're weird to be just that. Only "Dead Dogs Two" stands out from the rest to me, and only because of it sounds like it may have been written and performed by Atom and His Package, who is a good comparison to why?'s vocal timbre. Anyway, this is good stuff, and, according to the liner notes, this may be the group's last collaborative effort. - Alarm |
1XLP/Out Of Print