Slanguage
label: mush

producers: daddy kev

guests: d-styles
year of release: 2003
There's something about the LA streets layout that needs freestyling navigation as you go from A to B. The originally concepted capacity for the junctions and ramps long met, in the 24 hours of rush hour each day, trying to move faster than walking pace, demands an ability for a quick thinking of alternative routes. Crowded streets and dealing with too much on too little space is an image that fits this adventurous album. With Awol One and Daddy Kev being two veterans of the LA underground scene. And the assumption is fair, that not just one recording session must have gotten delayed due to traffic.
The spirit of eighty plus one cities town that LA has become shows in the freeism of this record, that moves through 22 entities, without a recognizable cell core and or city center. What is due to the continuity of the album, a wanted concept. However also due to the no nothing goes approach that is so out there, no idea seemed to have been booted off the drawing board or master disc. With Mush definitely going the furthest on here. With us friends, well, at least some of us, getting lost at the last traffic light. Such tandem journeys are remotely illegal anyways. Not to say that this opinion expressed is to mean, that the music on here, with music often being used for a cluster of sounds that does not comply to some definitions, should be a taboo. There's all reason and a lot of interest that gives the album its place in destiny. Besides just that it's actually very well made. Nevertheless, people will be abandoned, lost and left uncaring.

tracklisting
1. Ear Drums For Beer Runs At AA
2. Start Your Road Trip Now
3. My Father Is Time, My Mother Is Nature
4. Six Black Roses Are Sent To Your House
5. Audio Bibles Are Written On Stone Tablet Tables
6. Finger Paint With Bloodlike War Paint
7. That One Song You Play When You're Faded
8. Mechanical Angel In Purgatory
9. Reflections For Scratching Your Face Off
10. Grey Skys In Psycho-Delic Rgb
11. Idiot Savant Autistic Delivery
12. Bootleg Monster Movies
13. Montgomery Burns' Quest For Power
14. Bladder Sweat A.K.A. Colon Soup Rockin' The Mic
15. My Favorite Weapon Selection
16. High School Love Story Drop Out Song
17. Psychos Vs. Suckers Are The Branch Davidians
18. Buyin' Friends On Ebay
19. Slowly Means God Is My Witness
20. A Trainwreck In The Netherworlds
21. The Rules Of The Week
22. Turn Your Lights Off Conspiracy
As Awol and Kev don't make it easy for you. Considering their past achievements, be it collaborating or lonesome, the leap is catholic missionary era to LA Metro. With the Metro (standing for creativity and a positive alternative in this metaphor) being something to support, due to all the benefits and good points. Nevertheless even we at times prefer to ride sitting on one of those polluting cars (standing for the mainstream massproduction music). The leap is also from Leonardo's image of a chopper, to the times of actual ghetto birds. And interestingly enough, the cover image of the helicopter has a certain Da Vinci appeal to it.
Within all of that, the album is filled with good moments though, be it in the constant well placed scratching, the vivid imaginary of Awols verses, the quotes, the samples, the moment when we understand what we listen to, like on "Finger Paint With Bloodlike War Paint": "I got a letter from the government the other day, opened and read it, and then I got anthrax. Damn, I used to think it was the name of a band, and now the disease that I create, it's infecting the land." Or to fall into known bragging chapters later, saying "I've got classics that only took me one take, with your wack ass rhymes, that took two weeks to make." The words then are paired with often excellent Kev beats that just too regularly go everywhere, instead of just being simple. The connection to Free Jazz must evidentially be drawn: you don't just want the solos of the jazz songs, you want the structures and the melodies too. This album at times forgets to provide that.
This release will push a lot of reasonable people beyond the boundaries they previously occupied. And so while it's not always easy to get from A to B in LA, it's entirely possible. It can even be enjoyable, if you just take your time and don't hurry through the streets or this album.
review: tadah
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