Undie HipHop

Backjob

Well-known member
If ever a record store deserved to die, it's that one...

I'll never forget the look the guy gave me when I asked if they had "Stankonia" in stock (did it just to wind him up).
 

Jamie S

Member
I [highlight] loved [/highlight] that Bigg Jus ep a while ago, with Gaffling Whips and Plantation Rhymes on it. It seemed to have all the rhythmic inventiveness of Co Flow, but a lot sweeter. I love the way he keeps an even beat MCing while you get three or four different rhythms underneath.

Anyway, there was an album Black Mamba Serums that was withdrawn and then re-released with different versions this year. It's really underwhelming. Does anyone know the story behind why it get re-recorded/remixed whatever? Has anyone got the first one and is that any good?

As someone said upthread, APC are cool live. Stage in total darkness, just a few glowing bits of kit - and they kept telling the lighting guy to make it even darker.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
Backjob said:
If ever a record store deserved to die, it's that one...

I'll never forget the look the guy gave me when I asked if they had "Stankonia" in stock (did it just to wind him up).
i'm afraid i couldnt agree more.
 

echevarian

babylon sister
Just wanted to revive this long dead thread to say.

The new Sage Francis album is killer.

A Healthy Distrust on Epitaph records



So far the highlights are the aforementioned Slow Down Gandhi

and Sea Lion featuring Will Oldham


Seriously some of the best stuff I've heard from this Paul Francis character.


I'm just glad he's not particulary hip anymore.

Sometimes being marginalized makes artists work harder.
 

DavidD

can't be stopped
I haven't heard the new one, but Sage is ridiculously consistent and hardworking, but much more importantly, his music is pretty awesome. His new album is distro'd on Epitaph so you should be able to find it anywherr.
 

echevarian

babylon sister
More than anything He reminds me of underground rock in america in the eighties.

Not musically, just from the "influential for years" and "completely humbling" angles.


He's not hiphop's Bob Dylan, he's Husker Du, or the Replacements.


Nah he's the Minutemen
 

ollee

New member
originaldrum said:
do any you guys get aussie hip hop - certainly not about to let itself outside "undie" territory, and has come a long way from the early days......

check Curse ov Dialect out of Melbourne... they're on Mush so obviously far more alligned with the wimpy American 'savant garde' than say, er, Bias B or Pegz. My pick is "All Cultures" off their last album which samples the theme from Profondo Rosso for chrissakes.
 

MBM

Well-known member
I saw Cursed ov Dialect about 18 mths ago - and they seemed wilfully wacky. Not impressed.

Undie Hip? Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein. Wonderful, wonderful album...
 

puretokyo

Mercury Blues
Can Ox, starvin' harlem. The greatest. Funny thing is, I would never think of Ox as being undie hiphop; to me the Cold Vein LP just sounds like a 2002 reimagining of Enter the 36 Chambers - a long way from clouddead.

I have unconsciously reserved 'undie' for generally wimpy, faux-intellectual Mush-Anticon-etc wankery, an axis into which Def Jux really doesn't fit (beside maybe Lif and Aesop, neither of whom rock my boat).

MF Doom seems to offer something decent but I haven't delved yet.

Would people call Madlib undie? Because he definately sits closer to that stuff than Can Ox.

Finally, who else agrees that Vordul's new LP shits on Vast's LP?
 

mms

sometimes
cold vein was excellent, but it's the most proper hip hop record to come out on def jux.
mike ladd's welcome to the afterfuture was good too but some of the mc's ruined it for me with their blank verse clever cleverness. he's sort of been forgotten now hasn't he? he does all those concept albums. i bought the instrumentals again.
the new one on def jux hangar 18 is pretty good as well.
is jay dee undie hip hop? he's done track with mad lib, i really enjoy jay dee's music.
mf doom, never really dug his stuff, but he releases so much he's got a collectors following, some people are obsessed tho.
next prefuse lp has ghostface on etc, it's alright, next daelius is alright too.

question tho: is undie hip hop underground hip hop, i'd have thought not really, surely thats reserved for hip hop that's sort of locally based. undie hip hop is world wide and pretty big in comparison.

also undie hip hop generally just seems to intellectualise hip hop in a slightly indulgent way. Attempts at obscure poetry, Dylanisms and geetars, a sort of vegan sexlessness.
It also seems to fetishise hip hop's past in an indulgent way, the same kinda aging white b-boy thing you get with uk dj's like greenpiece etc.
It's as if they do this so they don't have to involve themselves with hip hop's politics and constant shifts forwards.
 
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hint

party record with a siren
I rinsed cold vein when it came out... but haven't felt the need to go back to it for quite a while. as far as a sit down all-at-once listening experience goes, it's up there with the finest hip hop albums, definitely.

I haven't even thought about def jux for ages, it seems. funcrusher plus is one of my favourite ever LPs in any style and other one-off company flow-related releases have been great (juvenile technique and patriotism in particular). but def jux didn't really head where I was hoping it would head. some of el p's solo singles were strong, but the LP was too thick for me. if everything's distorted the brain eventually just interprets it as white noise and you go from edgy, dark and oppressive to background noise.... fantastic damage crossed that lne, I think.

MF doom is pretty much untouchable in my opinion. he's funny, but not childish (the beastie boys). he's experimental, but not obtuse (countless undie heads) . he's witty with his wordplay but not in a smartarse / ironic way (edan or paul barman). everyone should at least check 3rd bass' gas face, KMD's Mr. Hood and doom's own operation doomsday and vaudeville villain. I think the only reason his fans might come across as "collectors" is because he seems to change his name for each release - so simply looking for MF Doom releases will only turn up half a dozen records at most.

I never really got the hardcore praise jaydee seems to get from some circles, although he can certainly build a strong beat (I don't know and fuck the police spring to mind). I always assumed that slum village was precisely the kind of jazz-ish, smooth hip hop that more experimental types would despise, yet jaydee somehow became flavour of the month amongst electronica types. or, at least, that's how it seemed to me.

madlib just churns 'em out - some of it is inspirational and unique, some of it is forgettable and frustratingly vague. but I guess his strength is that before you have time to take stock, there's something new on the shelves that may well contain some of the good stuff. it's one hell of a tactic and it's paid off. I've always been more of a lootpack-style madlib fan rather than a quasimoto-style madlib fan.

I picked up on anticon from their first compilation mini LP onwards... got stuff like deep puddle dynamics, sole and them LPs... but after buying a few of those releases I started to feel like each new release that came along didn't really bring anything new to the table - it was like it had already come and gone in my life and I had all I needed from "that lot". I even have a few albums by the likes of sage francis and themselves that I swear I haven't even listened to past skipping through in the record shop and deciding it seemed "interesting".

I guess, for me, funcrusher plus represents that sweet spot between abandoning the boom bap and disappearing up your own arse.

I might even go as far as to say that funcrusher plus and operation doomsday are my favourite pair of undies. (someone had to do it) ;)
 

DavidD

can't be stopped
Madlib has dropped enough singles that made me go "whoa" for me to love him.

This year alone was the "Madvillainy" release which is easily one of the best albums of the year.
He also did the De La song "Shopping Bags" and the Vast Aire song "Look Mom No Hands" and I think the production on those is ace. Also keep an eye out for his remix of the Beastie's "Shake Your Rump."

I still love Cold Vein, Fantastic Damage and Funcrusher Plus. And I've always found the criticism of El-P's album to be overblown, but I love it and I like the way he raps and I like the dense production style.
Mr. Lif, Murs, hell even Aesop Rock have released some cool shit too, although I wouldn't say I love their albums like I do the above.
 

fldsfslmn

excremental futurism
I'm wondering if anyone on here has heard Vordul Mega's The Revolution of Yung Havoks yet? The press that I've read so far has been unanimous in finding it somewhat underwhelming, but I'm more interested in hearing a review straight from someone who loves Cannibal Ox as much as I do.
 

arcaNa

Snakes + Ladders
...the cold vein is probably my favourite def jux album from the last 3 years...!could anyone on here maybe point me in the direction of other good alternative(?undie?hehe what a weird word)hiphop labels? ('cause where i am it's not exactly easy to find out about new shit,it takes years before record stores catch on... :( sigh.)
...love "Oxtrumentals" too...!
 

buddah baboons

New member
Depends on how much do you like The Infamous?

fldsfslmn said:
I'm wondering if anyone on here has heard Vordul Mega's The Revolution of Yung Havoks yet? The press that I've read so far has been unanimous in finding it somewhat underwhelming, but I'm more interested in hearing a review straight from someone who loves Cannibal Ox as much as I do.

The production is a lot straighter than the cold vein, it's got that heavy drums mid-nineties NYC thing going on. It's a very grounded record with no Vast, just hardship stories. C-Rayz and Jean Grae tracks are nice, rest I did find a bit underwhelming...
 

fldsfslmn

excremental futurism
buddah baboons said:
The production is a lot straighter than the cold vein, it's got that heavy drums mid-nineties NYC thing going on. It's a very grounded record with no Vast, just hardship stories. C-Rayz and Jean Grae tracks are nice, rest I did find a bit underwhelming...

Hmmm... So maybe not worth purchasing?
 

hint

party record with a siren
DavidD said:
Madlib has dropped enough singles that made me go "whoa" for me to love him.

This year alone was the "Madvillainy" release which is easily one of the best albums of the year.
He also did the De La song "Shopping Bags" and the Vast Aire song "Look Mom No Hands" and I think the production on those is ace. Also keep an eye out for his remix of the Beastie's "Shake Your Rump."

sure - madlib's one of the greats

madvillainy and shopping bags are very strong (although I think vaudeville villain is a better album than madvillainy). his beat for living legends that has just come out is also fresh, as are the beats he did for wildchild on his the jackal EP... but this year also saw the DJ rels album - pretty disappointing after the two 12"s, which I loved.
 

puretokyo

Mercury Blues
re vordul - yung havoks

fldsfslmn said:
Hmmm... So maybe not worth purchasing?

to give a diff perspective, i found it amazing. the main singles are ill - handle that, with vast, and never gonna hurt again and spitamatic - really good shit and a lot closer to can ox than vast's solo. again, as mentioned above, its definitely more low-key, grounded, traditional, but done with such nice style and with that unique ox mentality.

try to download those couple of tracks and if they float, buy it - if you can't find the tracks then i'd say buy it anyway. i'm waiting for can ox to get back, but this was a very nice filler.

hint said:
the LP was too thick for me. if everything's distorted the brain eventually just interprets it as white noise and you go from edgy, dark and oppressive to background noise.... fantastic damage crossed that lne, I think.

hmm, i agree that i find fandam hard to listen to, it doesn't appeal nearly as much as cold vein to me, but i find it makes a lot more sense given that el-p explained afterward that it was his attempt to do a bomb-squad/public enemy style of production. personally, i'm enjoying his current 'jiggy' style, but cold vein will always stand up, production-wise.

while we're on the subject, anyone else adore the 'weathermen' track they put together just after cold vein - it seemed to point to more in the 'vein', but we haven't been given anything similar since...
 
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