Underground Fossils is run by Dimxsk and often by Trylemma, who is on a hip hop spiritual journey in the Himalayas and may not be back for a bit. Posts are every Friday, usually some quality old sh*t but sometimes promotional posts or "reviews". We do all we can to make sure we don't post stuff that (1) You can still reasonably buy from the artist directly, (2) You can reasonably buy secondhand for cheap, (3) You can download easily elsewhere, (4) The artist(s) asks us not to for any reason. Rips will include our own personal rips, old scene rips, and random web rips.
For today we have a mini-"album" from Jedi Knights Circle / Lip Service rapper Randy. According to the liner notes, Left Overs is a collection of songs that didn't make the cut for the alleged upcoming Not Quite Human, an album I've never seen let alone had the fortune to listen to. As far as I know it never materialized, making this effectively Randy's oldest collection of solo recordings available.
I like JKC a lot. It takes a light hearted spirit and sense of humor to appreciate what they do, they often edge a little close to corny with some of their group tracks but they all show technical skill and a drive to create something new. That said, if you find the nerdy Star Wars themes a bit too much, Lipservice and their members are a great middle ground, with a bit more serious songwriting while preserving the fun and good natured quirkiness some of us have come to love.
Well, as someone who followed the incredible and driven songwriter Gregory Pepper on his mission to complete a song a week for a whole year (actually we got 53, because did I mention he's incredible?) I feel a bit of a special connection to I Know Now Why You Cry (not just because my name is on it). The hundred or so of us Patreon supporters were with Peps through a year both heartbreaking and heartwarming as he lost his father and gained a daughter, documenting the whole process through his music, drawings and associated messages to his followers. Through it all he managed to keep up with his promise of a song every Friday, and quite surprisingly not a single track was less than great. I still return to those 53 songs when I feel the need for some Peps in my life, and there's stuff to fit every possible mood, from rebellious to Common Grackle (oh yes). I've considered putting together a B-Side collection of some of my favorite tracks that didn't wind up on here, I'll see if he would mind and maybe I can share them with you.
He began talking about putting together a collection of his favorites around the end of the first 6 months, and the result is the album I have decided to promote for the week. Consisting of some lush reprises of his weekly songs, sometimes thrown together as effective medleys, this album absolutely kicks ass, and my name in the credits only adds to it's transcendent awesomeness. Despite the less than conventional writing process it seems like these songs were meant to go together, and when they seem at all out of place it feels so intentional. The weeks between the conception of these songs are erased as everything is crushed together into a collage of beauty and despair. Gregory Pepper has always worked with an ADHD style production method as his lyrics can bounce from odes to Sublime to the story of one person's guilty pleasure to Enya without being at all weirder than was intended, and the time lapse we see in the writing of these tracks only seems in character.
Here's a video for that song, entitled "Sublime Sun Tattoo" (did you think you were the only one who got that?):
Anyway, starting off with one of my personal favorites, "Good Call" has been transformed from a distortion heavy rock song to a baroque pop masterpiece, and is probably the best example of what's been done with these remakes. Where most of his tracks from that fateful year were rocked out power jams (with many exceptions, it was after all 53 tracks long), I Know Why You Cry has substituted distorted guitars for glockenspiels, vibraphones and fiddles. "Good Call" takes the guitar solo that I believe made the original an instant win and arranges it for strings. The effect is just as hard as the demo, but more interesting and with a charm that feels both Gregory Pepper & His Problems and With Trumpets Flaring.
The rest of the album does much the same, taking some of his most earwormy tracks and giving them a lush coat of paint. While all of the tracks on this new album are great, the reworkings have been more or less effective depending on the song in question. "I'm Dying" has gone from a mostly electronic effort into a very strange key driven waltz, leaving the distorted voice which seems a bit jarring over the melodic instrumentation. I found the original fit the theme of a dying computer a bit better than the remake, but the sheer catchiness of the song transcends any stylistic differences, and winds up getting stuck in your head no matter how it's presented.
Another notable entry is the remake of "Unsolved Mystery". Going for an acoustic rendition of this song has altered the tone tremendously, with the original being a post punk thrash type of deal. Lyrically references to drinking beer in the sunshine have been replaced with allusions to a somber and sad individual. No real idea where the alterations came from, but it does seem to give the track less YOLO more FML. I actually like both versions for entirely different reasons, one appeals to my middle school love of AFI and the other my current love of Radical Face.
While it's not rap, I feel like Gregory Pepper has proven both through his collaborative efforts with Madadam and Factor and his place on the Fake Four Inc. roster that he is very much hip hop. He writes lyrics (raps?), produces music (DJs?), draws (tags?) and probably dances (break?), I dunno but we can give that element a pass. I feel like his contribution to music in general makes him worthy of UGF's love (not to mention my name on his new album), and while there is so much to love going on in the rap world these days, I Know Why You Cry has dug a special place into my heart like drug related endocarditis, and I wanted to share it with you.
Get this incredible album by Gregory Pepper & His Problems here, and if it's a physical it has my name on it right there (did I mention that?)!
And just for fun, here's the music video for "I'm Going Back to the USA", Week 0's entry. See if you recognize any of the "actors"...
I'm taking you back up north this week with an obscure 30+ minute "EP" in the form of Mathias' "Da Prototype-Hype Superfluous EP."
Mathias is a part time Portland part time Bay Area rapper (and now aspiring actor?) who came up with the standard underground NW scene in the 90s and early 2000s. The EP is what you've come to expect from the NW in that era, slightly darker punchline heavy raps mixed with West Coast influenced deliveries. Features include My-G, Kable Roc, Shipwreck and Anaxagorus from Oldominion.
Mathias is still making music under "Mathias The Titanium" so if you enjoy this one, check out his newer stuff.
I remember digging in a dusty old box on the back floor in one of my favorite record shops in order to uncover this one. So enjoy!
Today I wanna quickly cover 3 exclusive (as in not available elsewhere) projects that you can get right now for a mere $1.00 (or more) on crowdfunding sources.
The first is the "Offerings" EP from Gift of Gab via GoFundMe. Gift of Gab is currently raising funds for his kidney transplant and has offered up a new project to support the effort. Sucks to see so many rappers in the scene going through health issues right now. Shouts out to 2Mex and Fat Jack as well. Check the project HERE.
Next up is Illmac's "Pay Tree" EP via Patreon (get it?) The EP is six tracks that you won't be able to hear elsewhere, fully produced by Chase Moore. Peep it HERE.
Last up is Gepetto's "Shadows" EP via Patreon. Gepetto just jumped on the crowdfunding train this month and this exclusive EP, which revolves around the concept of, wait for it, shadows, is his welcome to the game. Check it HERE.
Well, we made it to post #120, and we hope you're all liking the changes to the site, including our new "mission statement" located at the top of the page. I wanted to take a moment to explain the guidelines we use for posting downloads We wanted this blog to offer everyone the opportunity to enjoy some of the rarest rips that folks outside the scene community or not on Soulseek might not have access to. While we're definitely happy if it saves you some money in the process, we aren't trying to discourage anyone from buying something that's still available for what most would consider a reasonable price, be that secondhand or even better, from the artist themselves.
Therefore we won't be posting anything that can be found easily, for free or for what is a fair price. It's just not what we do, there's plenty of sites out there specifically dedicated to offering free music, and we respect that. With our reviews and feature posts we hope that we can build and maintain the kinds of relationships with the artists we love that amount to indifference at the very worst. We don't want to contribute to any hungry children or get any angry messages from hardworking musicians who feel like they're losing out over UGF. I've seen artists go apeshit on blogs and it's not pretty. Trylemma's got skills at finding the rarest OOP fossils and we just wanted to share those with the world.
Finally, a reminder that requests should be submitted via the cbox or the contact form only. Comments on posts should only be discussions about the post.
All that said, we got a request that definitely fit those parameters from foobar, and it's one that I personally looked for for a long while before finding it. It's funny that it's so different from the Boxguts album I reviewed on Wednesday, making my point that good hip hop comes in all forms.
Univac is a folk rap artist from Texas (?) who has collaborated with some of my favorite weirdos including Babelfishh and AbSUrd. His music has a definite alt rock indie feel to it, and he has a great singing voice to go with his melodic production. That's about the sum of what I know about him. He's got a second album available on Bandcamp that I really enjoyed from 2009. A bit Ceschi, a bit Otem Rellik. Definitely for fans of either one or other folkish rappers such as Astronautalis (the older stuff especially) and Filkoe.
Enjoy Snocap, Univac's debut (?) album, and consider picking up These Moments We Shared here from his Bandcamp. It's good stuff. Until next time...
Eleven years ago now the grimy East Coast rapper and psychedelic art genius Boxguts put out his first (to my knowledge at least) full length album Mutilator, totally produced by Johnny23 beatmaker Will Taubin who at that time was probably best known for providing the instrumentals for a large chunk of LoDeck's album Behold (a Pale Donkey). When I first heard it my initial impressions were, in order, as follows: Wow, this dude is disgusting. Damn he's clever. Ha this is crazy! Wonder what else he has? Imagine if Company Flow decided to inhale a tank of nitrous and record an album with the intention of making Necro vomit, and you might get an idea of what to expect from the duo's sound and energy.
Now, as the new decade begins Boxguts has decided to return to his roots. He's worked with Will Taubin here and there since Mutilator, including releasing the aptly named Spare Parts in 2011 which consisted of some random tracks the duo cooked up together. However, they haven't gone into the home studio with the intention of following up their collaborative effort with something new. After my review of last years Feast of the Deities I asked Guts if he'd like UGF to promote any upcoming material, and this time he gave me the chance to listen to the Mutilator 2 masters fresh out the box. Needless to say I accepted.
I listened to this album mostly driving through traffic, and with a work schedule that's becoming more than I'm used to I won't have a chance to do a more thorough listen before Wednesday. Consider this a fan's announcement, including some initial thoughts about the new record, availableon his Bandcamp now.
The thing I noticed most about this album early on was how far both of these artists have come in the decade between 2009 and now. For one thing, the mixing is much more professional, Mutilator was clearly a DIY labor of love and that was great, but it's pretty dope getting the chance to hear the product of ten more years of mixing and mastering experience. Will Taubin's production has evolved significantly as well, I told Guts yesterday that I was hearing something different with this material, and I finally figured it out. It's jazz. Moving back a bit from the discordant noise he used to make Mutilator so damn crazy, Will utilizes his excellent instinct for crate digging to build more melodic offerings (some vibraphone here, some clarinet there), which actually make the moments of discord more effective as they are often unexpected. The beat on the track "Swan in a Tar Pit" might even be called laid back, in a very East Coast way. Consider the difference between the eerie screech of the verse and the classical melody of the chorus on the first
single, "Knight Melter" (as in the braggin' dragon) below:
Boxguts is a bit more experimental in everything he does now, and while that
progression has been slow enough with over 20 albums to his name since
2009 that it's hard to really see one at a time, comparing the two Mutilators side
by side really shows how he's gone for a more gritty and animalistic
rhyme style. On the new album he keeps things crazy by rapping about
everything from breakfast to deep sea marine life (I may have mentioned
last time dude likes the ocean), all in a borderline growl. Less El-P,
more Jak P but still entirely Box G.
Lyrically he's as clever as he's ever been, however with a bit less violent content and more quirky, psychedelic imagery. We’ve had some email conversations about where some of his older, darker material comes from (he's also a cool individual, super friendly and humble) and my understanding is what is created when he puts pen to paper is often not filtered much by what he expects to write or thinks you want to hear, sometimes conceptual sometimes just what flows. We get a direct link to Boxguts' brain with every track, and the experience naturally ranges from amusing to almost horrifying, as everyone with a brain can relate to. And I wouldn't ask for anything else.
Finally, unlike almost any other rapper out there, Boxguts handles all his own album artwork and I feel like it's the glue that holds each of his official albums together. We get a chaotic, scary, gross and gorgeous mosaic of eyeballs, birds, faces and guts with every album dropped, and just like what we hear, what we see is a window into the mind of the rapper. Without his paintings the full experience of his music cannot be enjoyed properly (the cover of Mutilator 2 is one of his newest works, Minced Man and it may be one of my favorites of his album covers. The bars of color give the eye a point of focus that is unusual in his more crowded, claustrophobic paintings), and for that reason alone I highly recommend going with a physical purchase. He seriously will go all out to make your costs worth it. I also want to finally point out his website, where he sells his original artwork. Even if you don't make a purchase, checking out what's on offer will guarantee an interesting 20-30 minutes of your day.
Even for those of you who don't think you like the type of music Boxguts makes, I urge you to give it a shot. What he gives us is as honest as anything else out there, and, I truly believe that we shouldn't limit what we listen to based on what we think we know about it. Anyone who follows my posts knows I listen to all kinds of music, from Ceschi to Boxguts. It's all hip hop, rhythm and poetry.
Get Mutilator 2 here
from Boxguts' Bandcamp page on digital or even better on handmade
physicals complete with dope extras like magnets and stickers (all
painted by Guts himself, make sure to ask for an autograf if you want
one). See you guys Friday!
Today's post is the debut album from both Cam The Wizzard, currently best known for his work with Side Road Records, and DJ Cosm, currently best known for his work with Dragon Fli Empire, "Rapface."
The album was conceived after Cam and Cosm met each other in high school in Calgary. In a cypher circle outside of a Fourth World Occupants show, some angry rap-hating neighbor threw out the would-be-slur 'Rapface' and the guys decided to name their debut album after it! The "label" is Urban Farmers, which also served as Cam's first crew name with Cosm, No How, Rank Nubah, Infinite P, and Spime (the latter two of which are featured on the album.)
There are actually two versions of this project. The first version, which has a different cover and insert, contained an extra track called "I Won't Run." I have the physical cd lying around somewhere and one day I'll dig it back up to share. For now, however, enjoy the second version below.
Some may know that I'm not just a digital fiend, but I also collect those pesky media formats known as CDs, Cassettes, Vinyl, Floppy Disks, 8-Track, Personal Yodeler... Anyways, over on my RYM page, I've compiled a list of 100 things that I'm currently looking for on physical format (and, in some cases, on digital format as well.) Check the list below and if you happen to have any of these and are looking to sell or trade, let me know!
