The Weather
label: mush

producers: daedelus

guests: 2mex, circus, awol one.
year of release: 2002
 
With the clumsy list of artists as the originators of this music rolling roughly from your tongue, "The Weather" as a concept is only a look outside away. To understand this record here, understanding's probably a couple of hours in the future, as the three make this as complex as the Eskimo language, with 22 different words not only for snow, but also rain and sun and wind and clouds too. For example get your heads around this: "You tickle vegan women with a chicken feather, and plus that whip is leather. If you miss each other, kiss and pinky swear and wear hip-huggers", as said by Radioinactive on his and the album's one of two solo songs "Raffle Ticket Blues". And Radio is picking up the speed, recites the writing in a tornado of words, over a rather calm but attentive piano beat by Daedelus.

tracklisting
1. Exaggerated Joy
2. Pen's Oil
3. Carl Weathers
4. Glorified Hype Man
5. Fine For A Robot
6. Germs That May Cause The Following:
7. Weather Locklear
8. Break For 2300

9. DJ Furry
10. Raffle Ticket Blues
11. Sleep Standing Up
12. Name Forgetter
13. Thousand Words
14. Fizzing Energy Drink
15. Barely Music feat. Awol One, 2Mex, Circus
And fast is the word on all songs. With one of the fastest being "Carl Weathers", where you can easily miss Busdriver pointing out the "people who bring flat screens to book burnings", if it weren't for the lyrics that are to our great appreciation printed in the cover. As there's more Formula One poetry on "Pen's Oil", where in political ways the virgin consumerism of the sixties is commented, with the conclusion ringing wisely: "just because the world runs on oil, doesn't mean oilmen should run the world". The beat seems to borrow a lot of the Sesame Street aesthetic, with a drum glimpsing through the clouds at times. And Daedelus in general is hardly overshadowed by the attention demanding rhyming, may it be on the okay "Glorified Hype Man", where pop stars going out of the loop verses are said, or may it be on the playful Hammond organ playing "Exaggerated Joy", where Busdriver asks to "invite us and the conspiracy theorist and furry feminist to family diner with the grand wizard."
Daedelus actually finds the luxury of including many different parts in a song like "Germs That May Cause The Following", that sounds very different to the little samba of "Weather Locklear". That features Mikah 9 whistling, and not just thus is one of the best songs on here. Another one of those is "Fine For A Robot", where Busdriver sings his verses, where he and Radio discuss some cyber kink, while the latter gargles his way out of the song. Then there's also the overbearing static of "Barely Music", where the off sounds are wanted and the track is supposed to sound broken. This is the track where more wordartists are invited, with Circus doing the most direct speak verse.
As harsh this song is, as excellent is "Name Forgetter" again, where Daedelus not only digs out a child record voice sample, but also makes the playful instruments of the beat get a little spacey with him putting some spaciousness behind the sounds. Busdriver picks up this chance to again flow incredible, while equally confusing: "then there's orange cones around my bed, cuz I be manufacturing dreams so you can put 'em in your answering machine, and I sell them to people who get into fender-benders in bumper-to-bumper traffic". Radioinactive almost cockily merely states, that he's "just another funny looking Mediterranean brother, as the head of an alien hovers", before he lets Busdriver go through his solo song "Thousand Words", which is another lyrical Pulitzer song.
On "Sleep Standing Up", the two proclaim: "We are here. You are there. We are weird." There's little information on here, that would dispute this finding, as all three of the artists definitely follow the Mush mantra to push it out there. And out there is rather way out there. And Radioinactive rides verses that are travelling very fast, while Busdriver raps in more versatile progressions, what then enables Daedelus to even go further with it, as proven on "Germs That May Cause The Following", where the beat and Bus' rhyme do the same complicated dance steps into the sunset. And so maybe, just maybe, you can say that Busdriver overshadows Radioinactive a little bit. And the Busdriver fans out there will agree, while the Radioinactive fans will not. But instead they'll threaten you with what Radio's describes as his own murder, that partly included a throw of 'a dispenser of napkins'.
With all of this exposing "The Weather" as experimental, that still makes sense. As much sense as that there is a word in Swiss German for a road or patch of grass without snow. Yes, it'd be 'orber'. In a world where there often is snow, a word like that makes sense. In the world of the creativity of Busdriver, Radioinactive and Daedelus all of this makes sense too. And we can definitely pay that world a visit.
review: tadah
» back to top | last changed : 28.01.03
: .   © 2000 - 2012.08 by urban smarts | contact