| Upon hearing both its unsettling and whimsical touches, anyone would be hard-pressed to proclaim cLOUDDEAD's sophomore release, Ten, as merely another imprint in the fashionable, alt-hip-hop movement. Cut down in size, but certainly not in scope, from its self-titled predecessor, Ten features improved production and increasingly esoteric content that push this San Francisco Bay Area based trio further into its own abstract realm. Found samples, ambiguous wordplay, subtle crooning and dulled breakbeats all find equal footing with the swooning drones and reassembled sound sources. But any linear attachment to hip-hop as most people know it is tenuous, since cLOUDDEAD seems to have discarded the blueprints for the genre in favor of its own. Some of the album's only tangible links to our worldview lie in the woozy, eerie buzz of "Rifle Eyes" and "Son of a Gun," the latter harboring political overtones by citing Gandi, Lincoln, Emilio Zapata and others in its shuffling verse. With oddball textures and kitschy beats courtesy of sample-monger odd nosdam and the dynamic, nasally wordplay of Doseone, the ominous and tranquil atmospheres of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist why? Find suitable backing. "The Teen Keen Skip", with its sample from a children's song, avoids cliché by stamping on its derived potential through Dose's diligent delivery and the otherworldly ambience of nosdam and why?. The record breathes easiest under a backdrop of sustained noise, best exemplified by the closer, "Our Name." What begins as a murky exercise in both beat and bizarre narration culminates in an electric organ swell that washes down this brief saga, perfectly summing up this sonic soliloquy of an album. The trio has formulated a more gathered, albeit left-field, offering this time, instead of the sound pastiche of its debut. Although Ten hasn't made its way to the essential list at this point, it's another solid step in cLOUDDEAD's evolution, as hazy and intriguing, as that path may seem. - Fort Lauderdale City Link |
1XLP/Out Of Print