Fake For Real - Tag - Dose OneThe English written companion of Fake For Real: since 1997, reviews and articles about rap music2024-03-11T20:40:46+01:00Sylvain Bertoturn:md5:a035ff44a020bb716e18191580d6e9ecDotclearTHEMSELVES - Themurn:md5:9ed628799f5c90f6d4104d64a88e00162015-02-11T23:07:00+01:002015-02-14T11:07:02+01:00codotusylvAlbumsDose One<p><em>"I'm afraid we'll have to innovate..."</em> Such had asserted Dose One in 1999, on "It's Them", one of the most notable tracks of <em>Music for the Advancement of Hip Hop</em>, Anticon's manifesto compilation. And he hadn't said that in vain. As demonstrated with the heavy metal leaning cover art of this first album, it was obvious that Them - later known as Themselves - would not make do with ordinary rap.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2000/themselves-them.jpg" alt="THEMSELVES - Them" title="THEMSELVES - Them" /></p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.anticon.com" hreflang="en">Anticon</a> :: 2000 :: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000C85Z8/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0000C85Z8&linkCode=as2&tag=fafore05-20" hreflang="en">buy this record</a></strong></p>
<p>By these days, however, Adam "Doseone" Drucker and Jeffrey "Jel" Logan – who had met each other a few years before, at the Northwestern University radio – were still into rap music. Their experiments were not as extreme as they would become with the cLOUDDEAD project, and they were not into indie rock yet. This would happen a bit later, with 13 & God, their alliance with Germany's The Notwist, and then with the Subtle combo. However, as soon as in 2000, the duo was already challenging all familiar structures within hip-hop music. They mixed them with unusual sounds, and were into dangerous musical acrobatics.</p>
<p>First, we had Dose's abstruse and fantasy raps. Like some possessed man-child, he was declaiming some abstract poetry, at high-speed, and with a very nasal voice. Then we had Jel's work, and also Moodswing9's, J. Rawls', and some cuts from Mr. Dibbs. With some help of his SP1200, the beatmaker didn't care anymore about sample loops or boom bap. His music was entirely made of ambiances, and abrupt changes, all on par with the unpredictable lyrics and flow of the MC.</p>
<p>Some of these two guys' experiments were almost flops, like "Lyrical Coungel", with Sole and The Pedestrian. But some others, provided that the listener was open minded and had solid ears, were just brilliant, like the melancholic "Grass Skirt & Fruit Hart", the single "Joyful Toy of a 1001 Faces", so catchy with its ethereal "lalalas", and the conclusive track, the great and epic "It's Them".</p>
<p>Here, those who were still named Them – they would become Themselves with their next album, probably to avoid confusion with Van Morrisson's old band – were living according to Anticon's slogan: they were working for the advancement of hip-hop, bringing it to new spheres, unknown, unsuspected and forbidden ones.</p>https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2015/THEMSELVES-Them#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/2202CLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEADurn:md5:b522861259841bf19cdb21d8cece11cb2013-08-17T15:44:00+02:002015-02-14T11:07:44+01:00codotusylvAlbumsDose OneWhy<p>Appeared by the end of the 1990's, out of the indie rap movement, Anticon was a world apart in hip-hop's underground scene. Located as many others on the very active Bay Area, but gathering people from multiple places, the label funded by Sole managed to federate a large community of original artists, a collection of marginal and weirdoes, all seeking to challenge the many routines of hip-hop.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2001/clouddead-clouddead.jpg" alt="CLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEAD" title="CLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEAD" /></p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.mushrecords.com" hreflang="en">Mush Records</a> / <a href="http://www.bigdada.com" hreflang="en">Big Dada</a> :: 2001 :: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005LP0N/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00005LP0N&linkCode=as2&tag=fafore05-20" hreflang="en">buy this record</a></strong></p>
<p>Hip-hop, usually, is a Black men thing. It is supposed to come from the streets, to be rooted into the tradition of African-American music, to be made of hypnotic rhythms and repetitive loops. Sole and his crew, though, were all White, and rather middle-class; they flirted with indie pop or electronic; and their music went in every possible direction. Encouraged by the experiments of groups like Company Flow, they accepted white hip-hop characteristics which, in the past, used to be handicaps; they changed them into strengths. Doing so, they pushed hip-hop further, on new roads. They opened a large window and let the air in.</p>
<p>As soon as 1999, the label became a darling for hip-hop's underground and Internet segment, and some critics in British magazines such as <em>Wire</em> and <em>Muzik</em> helped extending its public and notoriety. It took one more year, though, for the first Anticon offshoot to be distributed in France. In fact, cLOUDDEAD wasn't really an Anticon group, since its album was released jointly by Mush and Big Dada. Also, unfortunately for newbies, this was not its most accessible record. cLOUDDEAD, indeed, was maybe the most extreme project of the Anticon family.</p>
<p>Recorded jointly by the producer Odd Nodsdam, the rapper Why?, and the odd Dose One, whose nasal voice and fantasist lyrics were easily recognized, cLOUDDEAD hit hard. More obtuse than ever, the Ohio rapper and his friend spoke on some ethereal music closer to post rock or Eno's ambient than to hip-hop beats. To push the concept further, the album was divided in 6 convoluted titles, split in movements, previously available as 7', which all had a guest, either someone affiliated to Anticon, or another character of the indie scene, like Illogic.</p>
<p>Full of experiments, this abstract form of rap flirted dangerously with the worst side of yesterday's prog rock, but it didn't sink into it. On the contrary, there was nothing else than grace with the two "Jimmy Breeze" et "Apt.A (2)". What this still hip-hop, though? The debate is still not closed, but frankly, we don't care.</p>https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2013/CLOUDDEAD-cLOUDDEAD#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/1991DOSE ONE & BOOM BIP - Circleurn:md5:222e4953cec5fe7ecc51608b440d1eec2012-08-05T12:59:00+02:002015-02-14T11:08:22+01:00codotusylvAlbumsDose One<p>This record of Dose One and Boom Bip is so typical of its time… Even if it wasn't released on this label, it symbolizes so well the rap deconstructionism logic launched in the late 90's by Anticon. It is bordering so much the absurd, that we are not sure we want to listen to it again, almost convinced that it failed the test of time; that today, it would sound horribly outdated; that like 99% of the people in its time, we would find it completely unlistenable.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2000/dose-one-boom-bip-circle.jpg" alt="DOSE ONE & BOOM BIP - Circle" title="DOSE ONE & BOOM BIP - Circle" /></p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.mushrecords.com" hreflang="en">Mush</a> :: 2000 :: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000560EA/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0000560EA&linkCode=as2&tag=fafore05-20" hreflang="en">buy this record</a></strong></p>
<p>Just consider this: quite a long album, full of non-sense lyrics, unfinished and non-logical sentences, without any clear storyline, delivered with Dose One's duck-like voice, an MC who can rap with any kind of flow, or sing-song, or whistle, or say spoken word, or preach, or repeat mantras; someone who can chant, rap a cappella or philosophize whatever about Jesus Christ; someone who finally admits that, "it's not supposed to make sense".</p>
<p>In addition, to go with such lyrics, we had these bits of beats from Boom Bip, sometimes ethereal, sometimes brutal, and which, despite the occasional presence of some scratches, sounded more like radical electronic experiments than like boom bap. Moreover, all of these were continuously shortened or interrupted by surprises and radical changes. It had no direction, absolutely none. Last but not least, we could heart lots of unexpected sounds, like the bird songs of "The Birdcatcher", finally evolving into monkey shouts or dog barks, on a sequel of this track. Also, elsewhere, we could hear bells on "Gin", military drums and a never-ending telephone ring on the so well-named "Goddamn Telephone".</p>
<p>Despite this gibberish words and beats, though, despite this indigestible mixture, it still sounds quite good. It is with pleasure that we rediscover the ambient - or Brazilian, we still don't know - music of "Dead Man's Teal", the rhythmic "Ironish" with its almost unbearable bleats, a violent "Slight" which reinvents dramatically the old rap / metal crossover formula, the cute, retro and old-school sounding "Town Crier's Walk", this "The Birdcatcher's Return" which evolved not too far from the music of Them, Dose One's other project, and finally the quiet and almost normal last track, "The Birdcatcher's Oath".</p>
<p>Is it a matter of habit? Is this because one's ear can be educated to such inanity? Is it related to some nostalgia, to the reminiscence of an exciting time when it seemed possible again to do anything with hip-hop, including mishandling, brutalizing, raping, or even killing it? Maybe; that's possible. Also, in any case, there is absolutely no comparison between the boring prog rock Dose One has drowned in since that time, and this <em>Circle</em> that we can listen to without pain. This record is still cool, it still sounds fresh; in its very special way.</p>
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