Tetragammoth

producers: orphan, lovely, presto, north star, bionix, warhol.

guests: staplemouth, noah23, livestock, hangnail, mofo.
year of release: 2002
Talk hieroglyphics. Have you ever had the feeling, that there is something to understand, because it sounds nice and the characters look nice and there for sure must be a meaning, somewhere deep inside, yet you don't feel yourself capable to see it? Baracuda72 produces a myriad of this confusing stuff. The cover displays the (deadly?) pill dropped into an open-mouthed head. Inside, I mean, while the records gets played, we find the effects and no package insert.
What we get here is all different types of sounds. Main thing: it doesn't sound like something we've heard before. Only the rhythm leaves space for eventual associations. But there has to be the awkward element for sure. And, don't expect the sun to shine very often. The feeling of being the last survivors of an dying-out species who will be suffering in this "Ice Age" is produced by the darkness of a drum and bass beat and the movie skits that come and go. And if you've found the connection between them, please tell me.

tracklisting
1. Tetragammoth feat. Staple Mouth
2. The Pattern That Lies Beneath Us
3. Waking Life Moment
4. Human Development

5. Deadly Rays feat. Noah23
6. Ice Age
7. Royal City Chainsaw Massacre
8. Unpardonable Sins
9. Dental Plan feat. Noah23
10. Mulberry Skies
11. Snap
12. Sattelites feat. Livestock
13. Mutagen feat. Hangnail and Mofo
14. Rain Buckets
15. Duplicate Version feat. Noah23
16. Regime
To set a standard for what it means to be a good emcee is certainly a difficult task. Among possible criterions, there might be this one: take a simple drum beat, develop it in every which way during a 5'40" track (you may later call "Deadly Rays") until it has reached a considerable speed and then put a rhyme on it which contents at least 5 messages. And probably most important: don't let on any struggles while flowing over a cutting edge or some sharply intervening siren. This is what's happening on "Tetragammoth". At least at some instances. Unfortunately, Baracuda72 cannot always keep the pace. He can produce a variety of rhyme styles at times and the junglist element is producing an intermixture we haven't heard very often before. But when the rhyming turns into babbling in the hustle of the beat, there's not much left and we puzzle over content as we did over the titles earlier. We might even ask if, (provided we did understand) we could find more than a bunch of words that sound like poetry...I'm just hypothesizing over the weak side. And before you call me ignorant I will tell you about the strong.
There is "Snap" for example, where Baracuda72 races alongside a Bionix beat. Think about the deadly pill again and you will know. And we have to admit that this time the pace is managed successfully and the sharpness brings at least some comprehension. What's really impressing is that almost every song has a 2nd part. This is where the drum and bass begins and limps start jerking when the pill finally dilutes inside the brain and down the body. Then there is the rocking Nr. 14. "Rain Buckets", where we get a funky loop and some irony. Some head nodding stuff in the end. After all, we be glad for the breathing where the dark realm is left, and was it only for two minutes and something before we drown again.
The attitude towards this production remains ambivalent, not knowing if it should be despised for its wanna-be cleverness or admired for the sure-shot glimpse of avant-garde it is providing. "Tetragammoth" is like these type of movies where you search for the story all the way through and everyone around you is giving you that meaningful look like they've found it themselves a long time ago...
So it seems like the best and maybe only thing that remains is to keep that meaningful look while entering the darkness.
review: denise
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