Which reminds me: I really need to get drunk and listen to Volta at some point…
[Video][Myspace]
[5.78]
Frank Kogan: The singing is dreamily out-of-tune and brain-damaged. Imagine if the fellow in the next cubicle had such a voice and talked all day? What would you do?
[3]
Ramzy Alwakeel: Doseone’s vocal performance on this peculiarly addictive electronicapopindiehiphopetc sounds more like channelling than straightforward collaboration; particularly striking is the melodic construction, whose spoken-word derived motivic work and lack of regard for regularity of metre are pure Yoni Wolf. A wistful succession of minor first inversions and insistent, rattling layers of percussion make for a genuinely moving climax as Yoni’s own sublimely monotonous vocal is finally laid under Doseone’s delicately multi-tracked input. Something like what Björk was going for when she put “Earth Intruders” and “Vertebrae by Vertebrae” on the same record, only better.
[8]
Ian Mathers: I’ve never been a huge fan of Why? or the whole Anticon thing in general (and some of the more obtuse lines here illustrate why, I think), but what I enjoy is the way that Anticon acts have been increasingly moving away from a rather restrictive indie/art-rap framework into music that’s increasingly unclassifiable. Along those lines, I’m sure Themselves aren’t that easy to pigeonhole, but the lovely “Canada” certainly is: it sounds like an out-take from a more ambient version of Dear Science, and any fans of TV on the Radio’s softer side would do well to give this one a listen.
[9]
Anthony Miccio: TV On The Radio lumber less and prettify more with each album, but these “avanthop” vets have beat them to the sweet end of the spectrum with this ballad, all swooning poetry and percolating percussion with no prog slog. Makes me wonder why I haven’t paid attention to the Anticon label since before TVOTR owned critics’ polls.
[8]
Martin Skidmore: I fundamentally don’t care for this post/avant/whatever rap, with rare exceptions. This is not actually identifiable as rap at all: it sounds more post-rock. Awkward music and thin, high, weak singing which admittedly has as little melody as most rapping. The plinking gathers a bit of momentum in places, but this does nothing for me.
[2]
Chuck Eddy: Intriguing use of negative space at the klinkity-klanking start (before the main wallflower starts whimpering) and toward the end (when his cloudy buddy chimes in more rhythmically.) But for the basic body of the track between those extremes, useless — despite sporadic lapses into melody.
[4]
Hillary Brown: I still don’t buy that this isn’t some kind of sneaky Animal Collective side project, but the results aren’t bad. There’s something very pretty (if a bit aimless) about the softly delivered vocals and the chimes over the top.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The way this threatens to explode at any second provides a scintilla of tension, but I couldn’t figure out the relationship between song title, lyrics, and vocals, except that I wished Terry Hall instead of a clone murmured these sweet nothings.
[4]
Rodney J. Greene: I suppose at a certain point it becomes convenient for indie-rap types to ignore one part of that equation or the other if they want to make a buck. For these Anticon types, mainstream rap is just too damn scary to undertake, so full-on indie it is. Surprisingly, it suits them. The elongated melodies lull, but the busily tinkling percussion prevents things from getting too somnambulent.
[7]