Death Grips

bandshell

Grand High Witch
I posted this in the Hip Hop '11 thread, but having listened through more of their material I think it's too broad for that and deserves its own thread.

Apparently, there are three people involved but the only identified member is Zach Hill from Hella.

Best thing I've heard in a while. Influences from all over the place.

There's a free mixtape on their site - http://thirdworlds.net/





 

daddek

Well-known member
reminds me of big juss / NMS

Been a while since i heard a new attempt at distorted electronic nerd rap i suppose. That cx kidtronic dude was the last one i can remember.

Does this strike you as new, tho?
 

daddek

Well-known member
great i just lost my entire post.

it wasnt a pejorative judgment bandshell
This kind of paranoid-apocalyptic-futurist hiphop was kind of a thing in the late 90s. artists like Dälek, Bigg Jus, Nephlim Modulation Systems (+ Orko's solo work), Techno Animal (kevin martin plus friends), Anti Pop (+ solo projs), Rob Sonic (Sonic Sum too), El-P (incl Company Flow, indelible mcs), a lot of early Def Jux Records (Mr Lif, Cannibal Ox).. bit more recently there was Food For Animals and some other acts. But it sort of deaded out around 8 years ago. In fact it seems like the whole idea of paranoid-industrial-futurist music started to lose currency around then. Be interesting to read some thoughts as to why

personally, I was into a lot of the above music back then, and haven't listened to much since (other than el-p). And this Death Grip tape really sounds like it could've been released 10-12 years ago - I'm missing any obvious production or flow influence from newer hiphop. So it strikes me as kind of throwback. And i never thought i'd hear throwback-industrial-future rap. But u know, its an amped up guy rapping about fuck-knows-what over sci fi beats.. whats not to like
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
great i just lost my entire post.

it wasnt a pejorative judgment bandshell
This kind of paranoid-apocalyptic-futurist hiphop was kind of a thing in the late 90s. artists like Dälek, Bigg Jus, Nephlim Modulation Systems (+ Orko's solo work), Techno Animal (kevin martin plus friends), Anti Pop (+ solo projs), Rob Sonic (Sonic Sum too), El-P (incl Company Flow, indelible mcs), a lot of early Def Jux Records (Mr Lif, Cannibal Ox).. bit more recently there was Food For Animals and some other acts. But it sort of deaded out around 8 years ago. In fact it seems like the whole idea of paranoid-industrial-futurist music started to lose currency around then. Be interesting to read some thoughts as to why

personally, I was into a lot of the above music back then, and haven't listened to much since (other than el-p). And this Death Grip tape really sounds like it could've been released 10-12 years ago - I'm missing any obvious production or flow influence from newer hiphop. So it strikes me as kind of throwback. And i never thought i'd hear throwback-industrial-future rap. But u know, its an amped up guy rapping about fuck-knows-what over sci fi beats.. whats not to like

Pretty much OTM, but throwback's are good sometimes to make oneself realise what one liked about it in the first place. I dunno about it deading out though, there's been streams of post-industrial stuff, it just became music for goths and the media/fashion people hate goths, even more than metallers.

Also I think all the ideas in the cyberpunk/dystopia thing just kinda came true, so there was nothing new to add to the conversation.
 

daddek

Well-known member
well the back-to-the-goths thing illustrates the marginalization at work more than the processes driving it.
In late 90s clubland, paranoid-futurology was a friday night main room thing, ravers in ben sherman packing rooms to hear No-U-Turn, Jeff Mills playing music that described an end of days tech shitstorm. Same man on the street would go back home to smoke to Tricky or Portishead. Even fucking underworld, leftrield had those strains.

I think pre millennial tension was an observable thing, and it was followed by a post millennial.. insouciance? Like its 200x, the future is here, nothings changed, get over it. Transatlantic economy boom, and post 911 patriotism, and a tech future itself had a happy & sharing shine with social web & facebook.. plus a teenage generation overwhelming interested in beautification & vintage nostalgia. i kinda get the sense that futurism is beginning to register once again, recently.. maybe the forthcoming tech issues are creating some future shock once more

shit, pretty big diversion. back ot.. nothing wrong with throwbacks.Doesn't hurt to modernise an abandoned idea when revisiting it tho.
 

Leo

Well-known member
also reminds me a bit of mark stewart's solo records and those with maffia, the way some of his stuff used harsh distortion over amped-up on-u sound beats. but i agree that while clearly taking from the past, there's something about this death grips sound that's new.
 

PeteUM

It's all grist
also reminds me a bit of mark stewart's solo records and those with maffia, the way some of his stuff used harsh distortion over amped-up on-u sound beats. but i agree that while clearly taking from the past, there's something about this death grips sound that's new.

Yeah. Ultimately everything is some sort of synthesis that may or may not be successful/interesting/produce something new and I think this is quite striking because the parts are so discrete. It's deceptively simple, like a great piece of engineering. Sorry, quite hungover - having sense-impressions that may be unreal. I like this though, and I think I like it more than some of the things it sounds a bit like.
 

computer_rock

Well-known member
el-p will always be futurist i expect, whatever the decade.

the weareallgoingtoburninhell megamixx was basically a post millennium dystopian concept album

 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
=But it sort of deaded out around 8 years ago. In fact it seems like the whole idea of paranoid-industrial-futurist music started to lose currency around then. Be interesting to read some thoughts as to why

Because the 'underground' was always more obsessed with some strange heart-on-sleeve thing. It's why of all the Anticon MCs, Slug was the one who blew up the most successfully (that and he's the most coherent to untrained ears) or that Vast Aire was always the favorite Cannibal Ox MC, despite the fact that he's not that functional as a rapper. Off hand, I want to say something lazy like how everyone who became members of that underground of rap, Common's "Resurrection" was a gateway drug that turned them into elitist hip-hop snobs, but I don't know that obviously. It does feel like that's the setting of the standard for 'not so technically impressive but astonishingly earnest personality driven rap' that underground 'futurist rap' got pushed to the side for.

Also, there's an issue that these acts all got less and less attatched to Hip-Hop. Like... Anticon turned into a bunch of post-rock bands... Def Jux, by their very end, were promoting indie funk and god-awful backpack. Obviously we know what happened to Kevin Martin, and JK Broadrick went so far off the deep end into essentially 'white' music... It's really hard to continue a rap movement when none of the artists want anything to do with rap for a period of time.
 

you

Well-known member
death grips really reminds me of leatherface's mad and macabre mix tape ( juke ) in places....... like juke with a hardcore edge

am I alone?
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
cool stuff, the guy sounds a bit like rza when he was in gravediggaz..

and the bigg jus/nms comparison is true. well worth checking the woe to thee.. & black mamba serums LPs if you like this
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
love it when a group is considered important enough to get their own thread here - ususally shows something really interesting is going on. look fwd to checking this out when i have access to speakers....
 
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