The reason why Beneath The Surface is so crucial a record is, primarily, historical. Discovered by many on the same websites that, by the end of the century, offered illegally music from the likes of MF Doom or Non-Phixion - along with the first Anticon releases - it gives a good glance at the West Coast Underground scene, in the heyday of indie rap.
The guys there don't come from nowhere. Four years after the legendary Project Blowed compilation, this is its reload, somehow. Some of the original rappers are still in, like Ellay Khule, as well as the scene's godfathers, The Freestyle Fellowship, at their very best with the outstanding "When The Sun Took A Day Off And The Moon Stood Still".
This album, though, is dedicated to the second or third generation of the movement initiated close to ten years before, at the Good Life Café. A generation that, in the noughties, will record some of California's finest indie rap materials.
Released on Daddy Kev's defunct label with a colorful cover art from Mear One, Beneath The Surface is primarily a compilation, aimed at advertising the talent of obscure acts like Afterlife, the Shapeshifters, Of Mexican Descent, the Hip Hop Kclan, and Global Phlowtation. On this record, many will hear for the very first time Awol One's warm and erratic voice, or Circus displaying his strange, haunted and nerdy kind of rap, on the sweaty organ beat of "Night And Day"'.
Here the big Xololanxinxo, supported by others, reveals the same weakness for guitar beats, as with Of Mexican Descent and, later on, Toca. Beneath The Surface is also an opportunity to be impressed by Ellay Khule's crazy flow, highlighted on "Sunny Side Up" by a contrasting crepuscular ambiance.
There is another reason, though, why this compilation is so great. And this reason is, curiously, that it is not really a compilation… Despite its many rappers, it is solidly built, exactly like an album. It has a value in itself, and it needs to be experienced and savored as a whole. It is rich, with no filler. And it will age very, very well. The reason for such consistence, such homogeneity, resides in one name: Omid Walizadeh - by then still called O.D. - one of the greatest unsung production heroes of the Californian hip-hop scene.
Omid changes this compilation into a true masterpiece. He does it thanks to a wide area of unusual sounds: Native American chants ("Beneath The Surface"), sunshine pop ("When The Sun Took A Day Off ..."), Indian or oriental music ("Hazardous Curves"), and a bit of easy-listening. A true hip-hop beatmaker, he is good with minimalistic loops ("BustMustJustUs"), but more often than not, his work is more subtle and more complex, like with the harp on Vixen, Slant & Puzoozoo Walt's "(In)sense", or the violins on H.I.M.N.L. & Tyliana's "For Her Souly, Slowly, Solely".
This is the complete opposite to the grim blackness associated with New York's underground hip-hop production style. It is as versatile as the raps of its guests. Flexibility and resourcefulness have always existed with the Project Blowed, but Omid pushes them to their apex, subsequently delivering one of the very best album ever recorded by these folks.