Underground Fossils was an indie rap focused blog run by myself (Dimxsk) and by Trylemma, who passed August 3rd, 2024 from liver failure of unknown origin at the age of 34. We mostly posted week or twice weekly, the bulk of which were rare rips we made, found on old blogs, he acquired through his insanely broad connection to the scene, etc. We did all we could to make sure we didn't post stuff that (1) You could still reasonably buy from the artist directly, (2) You could reasonably buy secondhand for cheap, (3) You could download easily elsewhere, (4) The artist(s) asked us not to for any reason. Being involved in this blog was some of the most fun I ever had, even if at times it was time consuming, challenging or intimidating (having a readership). It was the product of one of the best friendships I've ever had. If I could say one last thing, it's to encourage all of you: if you have the time and desire, make your own UGF. Find a friend who loves this shit like you do and build it together. It will bring you incredible joy, enhance your connection to this amazing community, and change your life in unexpected and exciting ways. I know it did mine. Love you all!

Friday, May 29, 2020

Hungry Mob - It Is What Is Is (1996)


Today's upload is from Portland's (Oregon that is) Hungry Mob, 1996's "It Is What Is Is."

Hungry Mob was a pretty big local Hip Hop live band that was fronted by the great Mic Crenshaw. The crew probably first gained significant attention after being included on the "Western Conference All-Starz" compilation in 1997 alongside NW indie giants like Cool Nutz and Lifesavas. While Crenshaw has been a constant factor, the group has seen various lineups, including the addition of Oldominion/Sirens Echo member Toni Hill (though this release pre-dates her I believe.)

"It Is What Is Is" was a cassette only release, featuring 10 short tracks. The album definitely sounds of its time - very airy and jazzy with large G-Funk and reggae tinges. Those who like that sound should dig this for sure. And even back then, Crenshaw had great presence on the mic. 

Peep the project below (and if anyone has leads on a physical copy of this, let me know!)

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

New Music: Curbside Pickup (Noah23) - I



There was a time a while ago when Noah23 was flooding our indie rap webs, though, more recently, the man has been pretty quiet. That changed this past week, however, with a new beat tape entitled "I," released under the name Curbside Pickup. 

As far as I know, Noah23 hasn't dropped too many beats publicly over his vast career. As such, I was expecting a sort of rough type project with this one when he announced it. I was pleasantly surprised however with what I got, which is a short 7 track project (with no song going over, or anywhere near, the 3 minute mark) consisting of some very clean and infectious instrumentals. The beats are very "vibey" and worthy of head nods. Noah mixes in vocal samples and sound effects very nicely throughout as well. 

The project is currently free to download on Noah's Bandcamp page. I'm not sure if there are currently plans to continue with the Curbside Pickup moniker moving forward, but I wouldn't mind it! Peep the project HERE

Friday, May 22, 2020

Phlegm - Meta4etry: The Tear I Spit Back Up (1999)





For today... I had no idea what to upload. Posters block I guess... Work is distracting, the apocalypse is fizzling out and honestly it's got me feeling weird. So what could possibly better fit the mood than an old offering from the singular Brad Hamers, with Slomoshun as Phlegm. A duo who recorded an album in 2002 called One Night Stands with Out of Tune Instruments in a Room with Blue Wallpaper, an album that actually features out of tune instruments. Probably recorded it in a blue room as well.

Anyway I like these guys and their affiliates. Nobs, Losaka, Eibol, Neanderthal Youth, Dezmatic. The Albany, NY based 3 Sides of a Circle has a very nice take on experimental rap, with more than a touch of old fashioned East Coast style swagger. Introspective, well produced and often catchy, they quietly released a slew of dope albums in the early aughts and for the most part have quieted down. Not so for Brad Hamers who just put out an album as Through Flames that I have yet to listen to, but the lead singles were interesting. Barely rap, more spoken word theatrical noise.

Anyway, Met4etry is one of his earliest releases, and is rough, DIY and definitely not his best work. He hadn't developed his own personality that really makes everything he's done lately so unique, back before the turn of the century. But it's a great thing to hear if you like the rarities enough to dig up UGF, and what the hell gotta have something to irritate the driver next to you when you emerge from your quarantine cocoon.

Enjoy, and I promise you'll have my full attention again when I return in two weeks.



 

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Pedestrian - Songs of the Light Workers Local #168 (2005)





Whattup everyone! So Trylemma and I decided that, to split the week up a bit more evenly we're gonna do posts on Tuesdays and Fridays instead of Wednesdays and Fridays. You may have noticed the change in our header if you make a habit of scanning it every time you check in (lol). So this week at least I'm going to give myself a bit of a break and offer a download instead of a full blown article, I can't think of anything that works plus we got a request from a longtime visitor and I wanna hook him up as quickly as possible since he's come through for me in the past. So with that, we've got this album which came from another visitor, can't remember their name but BIG thanks if you're reading this!

Songs of the Light Workers Local #168 is a tour only CDr compilation by Anticon's own Pedestrian. A California native, Pedestrian eventually moved out to Maine, met Sole, Alias, all the rest, migrated back to the Golden State and the label was born. I grew up listening to Anticon, I know some people have... opinions about them but I liked a lot of their work (except for the stuff that gave me headaches and made me angry) and I know that Pedestrians apparent lack of solo material hides a fairly extensive involvement with that whole collective. This one is actually the longest album he ever did (at least that I know of), and consists of a ton of material, most of it unreleased. It features a few fellow Anticon members, some of the accapella and noise weirdness the label is well known for, but also a few real, actual and fairly dope songs.

So with that enjoy Songs of the Light Workers Local #168, and I'll be back in two weeks with another wordy review for ya'll. Thanks for your continued support, as always!



 

Friday, May 15, 2020

Poetic Pilgrims - Weighty Mic Sessions (2003)




Springing off of the Prairie Rap post last Wednesday, today's upload is 2003's Poetic Pilgrims' "Weighty Mic Sessions." 

Poetic Pilgrims was a Saskatoon trio, consisting of Parab Poet, Inside Out, and Kwest. The guys gave their unique Christian rap take on the Prairie rap sound. While the guys were close to others in the scene, they kept nearly the entire project to "faith based" artists out of fear of what their church would think otherwise. Apparently Factor had offered them a beat for this project but they turned it down for this reason (Muneshine does a beat on here, but got the pass for his work with Lightheaded.) 

"Weighty Mic Sessions" is the trio's only official album and it fits in nicely with the Prairie Rap sound of the time. Things do get preachy at times, but still generally fine for those (like myself) who don't identify with Christianity. Braille and Sev Statik make appearances, connecting the U.S. Christian indie scene to the Canadian one. 

Peep the album HERE

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Prairie Rap Ultimate Box Set (+ Help Out Factor!)


Today I'd like to share a list/playlist made by an RYM buddy of mine, BrothermanTrill. The list tracks the history and current state of so-called Canadian "Prairie Rap," a movement best known for giving us the likes of Side Road Records, Peanuts and Corn Records, and Clothes Horse Records. BrothermanTrill identifies key releases, provides historical context via interviews and reviews, and provides a Youtube playlist consisting of songs from the projects he covers (the playlist includes some rare tracks!) If you're at all interested in the sub-genre, be sure to give it a peep HERE.

In related Prairie Rap news, the great Factor Chandelier recently had his basement flood, causing him to lose a portion of his equipment. Consider helping him out by copping some of his music on the Fake Four or Factor Chandelier Bandcamp pages. Fake Four put together a great package bundle consisting of, at least, 12 Factor-produced CDs for only 50 bucks. Check it HERE

Come back Friday for a Prairie Rap upload too! 

Friday, May 8, 2020

Vice Versa - Blind Surgeon (2008)





As promised, here's some old old Cane Corso music from the subject of my Wednesday review Carminemoth, as Vice Versa.

Blind Surgeon is in my opinion a great place to start with his work, it's a bit more accessible for the fans of more conventional rap than his later stuff, and it's got some great production with enough eeriness and darkly mystic quality to make it a different take on the East Coast conscious rap it shares some stylistic components with.

Enjoy Blind Surgeon!


Wednesday, May 6, 2020

New Music: Carminemoth - Noumenon





A little under a decade ago I impulse downloaded something off of Bandcamp, a label restrospective by a group I'd never heard of based in the Soutwest going by the name Cane Corso Records. That album was Supernormal Decorum, and I wouldn't listen to it for another 5 or so years. I remember the first time I did though. It was the opening track "Pharmakon", featuring the rappers Vice Versa, Riishii G7 and Poetic Death (now Von Poe VII, I mentioned him during our Decade Wrap Up list) over a deeply eerie but incredible beat by Krippled Khemist that really showed me what kind of music people have been making on the sidelines, quietly and without concern for convention or trends. A bit like Wu-Tang, if Wu-Tang practiced witchcraft. Lyrically conscious but often times stream of consciousness, from the spiritual Poe to the grimy battle rapper Alhazred there were a wide variety of styles (the label compilation even features a doom metal track) interspersed with extremely effective vocal samples about the desert. I told Carminemoth that Cane Corso does "atmosphere", and I feel like no one at the moment is doing it better in hip hop.

Speaking of atmosphere, what we've been going through together as a planet is touching every aspect of our lives (no this isn't a tangent, give me a second...). Some of us are finding ourselves drawn to the ones we love. Some of us are reaching out to the less fortunate. Some of us are slowly breaking down. Of course some of us are just the dicks we always were. And many artists are using this opportunity to put out some of their best work in years, and we need that distraction almost as much as we need some working ventilators. The aforementioned Vice Versa, now going by the name Carminemoth (sometimes one word sometimes two) has been particularly productive lately and has released three new albums to add to his already extensive catalogue of vocal and production material. As Blunted Sultan, who's made a name for himself working with artists like Apakalypse and Boxguts we have the instrumental albums Vox Angelicas and Young Chimaeras, and as Carminemoth we have the vocal work Noumenon.

I have a weird inability to truly get into instrumental hip hop as music in itself. If it seems to be intended to feature vocals (as in a 48 or so bar song featuring a sample, some drums and some synths without too much variation) then I usually find myself wishing someone had blessed it with poetry. It feels unfinished to me (these instrumentals do have movements and variety, so they don't come across as just "beat tapes" necessarily. Sound experiments is probably a good phrase). So when I decided that I wanted to do a Carminemoth review for this week I chose Noumenon, and just finished listening to it this morning.

There is more than enough of that atmosphere I mentioned earlier to be found here, from the opening track "Antipope", laced with weird religious references and a plodding organ driven beat to the somber, dusty "Comb of Rays" Carmine's lyrics paint disturbing and surreal pictures that always remind me of something you might see in an abandoned Victorian mansion, possibly one that hosted a murder party decades earlier and has remained unquiet since. He's exceptionally talented when it comes to drawing back the curtain on weirdness, with a voice like a possibly undead stranger on a dark road passing a cemetery. If anything as the years have passed and he evolved from Vice Versa to Carminemoth he's allowed himself to create music more and more different from what we're used to hearing, abandoning rhyme all together in favor of rhythmic stream of consciousness. In some ways I prefer this, it can occasionally be distracting when it's more unclear than normal what he's talking about, but since his alteration of ego occurring around the time he released 1917 he's made himself distinct for his style alone, and I am truly a sucker for originality in all it's infinite forms. The old Vice Versa was comparable to a cid dosed RZA, Carminemoth is in a league of his own.

His old fashioned, historical sensibility isn't solely the result of lyrics that seem to draw on obscure and outdated vocabulary such as "split by a blunderbuss" (he clearly reads a lot and has a penchant for 19th and early 20th century horror) and names like 1917 and "Oculus Theater" from the album Miniature Mansion. He chooses (and produces) beats that utilized warped and altered samples from obscure sources that all together give an almost visual impression of dusty wood, cobwebs and ghosts in outdated dress. Long forgotten rooms full of obscure relics. Noumenon benefits from some of the most interesting production I've heard from him in a while (save for the album he did with 7th Galaxy, Useless Human as ひきこもりwhich I believe means Hikikomori, that was probably my favorite of his works), including one song produced by the peerless Aloeight, who seems to be getting the recognition he deserves among our people at least. Pianos, wavery vibraphones and harpsichords are absolutely perfect backdrops for Carmine's lyrical stylings, and if the production isn't all that dissimilar from what he's used in the past, it is at least some of the most captivating.

So Noumenon is another great chapter in the Carminemoth canon, exceptional in the way he's solidified his sound, but not groundbreaking when compared with his other albums under the same name. That's totally fine with me, I have yet to hear something with his voice I haven't thoroughly enjoyed. That said, I do also want to remind you guys of the two instrumental albums he's put out as well. Check these covers out, and be warned that he hasn't lost his penchant for that atmosphere even lacking words to bring it home.



"A painter may know what he doesn't want, but let him be weary if he ever wants to know what he wants. A painter's lost if he ever finds himself. As for myself the fact that I was lucky enough never to find myself, that's my only claim to merit."

That quote is featured on the Bandcamp page for Vox Angelicas, and I interpret it to mean that the creation of art is a journey to knowledge where the end means that creation is also at an end. Art is the process of exploring oneself, and if that self is found, then there is nothing new to dredge up. I find that fitting, as Blunted Sultans work has been steadily becoming more sophisticated and artistic while reveling in each level for it's own sake, rather than seeming to rush headlong into the next venture. Enjoy these sludgy beats, he did message his supporters and mention that he's okay with these being used by aspiring rappers, although I think it would take a very specific individual to truly do their eerie colors justice.


Get Noumenon and the aforementioned instrumental works by Carmine's producer moniker Blunted Sultan here, and definitely consider checking out the extensive collection of other works by great artists like the late Arcanegel and Alhazred, as well as Riishii G7, Ben Lowder and more. Cane Corso is one of my most cherished Bandcamp finds, and I can only hope others will love their work as much as I do.

Oh yeah, and tune in Friday for something cool from Carminemoth, way way back.

Friday, May 1, 2020

Innate - Observations (1998)



We are fulfilling a request today with 1998's "Observations" mixtape from Innate.

Innate was a member of the Saskatoon Beatcomber crew, who played an integral part in the Canadian prairie Hip Hop scene in the 90s and early 2000s. "Observations" is one of the many mixtapes (actual mixtape) that came out of the crew, but one of the few that has been salvaged. On it, we get two sides of mixes featuring indie acts like Jurassic 5, Grouch, Bored Stiff, Sixtoo, Aceyalone, and Company Flow. Nice nostalgic feel. Also peep the exclusive freestyle from the one and only Epic on Side B!