Earbleeders
label: cote

producers: pilot balloon, thebutterflyswift, kaeoflux, digistance, optimis, pregnantwaterrock, jud, k-the-i???.

guests: the crooked man, timaro sadiq, scizzahanz, grizz, physical, bks, ranger rick, l-unknown
year of release: 2002
The biography of Carl Kavorkian reads well. He has accomplished some, has done tracks and records before, he has a crew, he has paid his share of dues. He's been there and done that, and along with him a whole lot of other artists too, that are too flat to make this have them stand out. What means that the bio of Carl will not attract a crowd to the record store to grasp his record in a matter of minutes after its completion. However, it's not in the hype, but it's in the music. Because the willing, the curious, the ones that get a bottle of Vanilla Coke personally advertised by Chaz, those who will dare to give this record a listen, it's those that'll realize where Carl stands out. It's in his music. And how long has it been since it's been in the music?
Not necessarily amongst the waters where Carl swims. It's always been about the music with people that don't buy things as a fashion statement. At least after Rawkus banished itself to the hell fires of label logos. Ever since then Carl can count on the people that will risk to listen to something they have never heard before. Like him. Who comes self produced and self rapping, with eighteen tracks of hard braggadocio and at times rough abstractive beats. They are both big on the "Introfunktion", they are in the tradition of the harness of Official releases like "Bittersweet", they are horrorcore like on "Blackout", one of the instrumental songs. "Love Potion #9" is one of the best songs on here, with the industrialization being matched with the angst rhetoric of irrational patters and the syringe that is used in exchange for the headphone plug.

tracklisting
1. Intro / Introfunktion
2. Scatter Brain
3. Mega Storm I
4. Bittersweet

5. Blackout
6. Blades feat. The Crooked Man
7. Haze
8. Book Of Shadows feat. Timaro Sadiq
9. Love Potion #9
10. Whiteout
11. Leafs feat. The Crooked Man
12. 10,000 Leagues
13. EOE feat. Sin Souljas
14. Redout
15. Rhythmortis
16. Mega Storm II
17. Uprising feat. Dust II Dust
18. Weathered / Outro
"Whiteout" is another instrumental track, featuring a hard continued hammering, while the equally "Redout" is a musical wasp attack. With no voice being on these two tracks, a lot of voices are on the songs that feature guests. Like "Blades" and "Leafs" both feature The Crooked Man, "Book Of Shadows" features Timaro Sadiq. The first posse cut is called "EOE" and featuring the Sin Souljas: Scizzahanz, Grizz, Physical, BKS and Timaro Sadiq and the second is "Uprising" and featuring Dust II Dust: The Crooked Man, Ranger Rick and L-Unknown.
But not everything was done by Carl, but at times by Rockwell, who does the beat on "Mega Storm I" and "Mega Storm II" that features a dope uprising fog horn, or "Haze" where Carl flips his wordly skills, over one of the best beats on here. On the other hand, Kahmeeleon is failing to make his keyboard strings work on "10,000 Leagues". His second offering, the beat on "Weathered / Outro" is much better though, as Kahmeeleon keeps everything minimal, leaving Carl a lot of space to come with his particular evil outlook.
This album is easy to grasp as it gives us a particular style. At the same time it's hard to communicate unless you want to use the undesired generic genre name horrorcore, as well as draw connection to the roughness and bareness of early Company Flow, a group Carl cites as inspiration, and other early Rawkus releases. Those that have heard these know what to expect. And while this maybe sounds like Carl is a couple of years too late with his music, the style wasn't done enough to really be heard too much already. What in total means that Carl does a lot right for the dark spirited, with his at times evil, mostly braggadocios rhyming, and bare and rugged production.
review: tadah
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