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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 |
| cLOUDDEAD are a hip-hop trio from Oakland. Hmmm already I am doing them an injustice. Ok let's just stick with the basic facts for now. Ten is their second album release, the follow-up to their much-lauded self-titled debut, and it is probably the most unique record you'll hear this year. It's hip-hop but only in the sense that cLOUDDEAD use the same styles and techniques like cutting and scratching or sampling. In certain parts it's more like deranged folk music made by a barbershop quartet of midgets who've drank too much Coca -Cola, other times it's hard to draw comparisons with anything. Tracks can revolve around scratched nursery rhymes, Beach Boys style harmonies, improvised instruments and simple white noise, but the music is fractured and in constant flux. It's like eavesdropping on Boards of Canada in therapy. Lyricists Doseone and why? aren't so much rappers, as autistic stalkers of a world they capture from hasty snatches of overheard conversations at dusty highway cafes. They are outsiders, always listening in on civilization from the shimmering desert road that surrounds it. Their words are like the beat prose of Kerouac or Burroughs that ranges from the banal ("Youngsters today are not prepared to buy plants or collect stamps") to the inspired ("The makers of guns will never go hungry") and frequently incomprehensible. Ten can be considered a great record simply because of its sheer originality. It's enough that there's a group out there like cLOUDDEAD making music that is as bizarre and beautiful as Ten. It won't be to everyone's taste but that shouldn't stop everyone listening to it anyway. - Eye Ball Kid |
1XLP/Out Of Print