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.
Just got back from vacation folks, still no time this week for one of my patented unnecessarily wordy reviews. But given I want to post something relatively quick and easy, and the very real love I have for this album and the artist behind it I figure why not do something a bit different.
So this is not really a fossil. It's more like a very rare species of frog that we only know of from a jawbone but is still to some degree extant in theory. You have almost certainly never heard this album although I guess it's possible you found it the same way I did.
Surfing Bandcamp one day I somehow stumbled onto music by the humble and unassuming musician Quote. I know he's humble and unassuming because after really connecting with the beauty contained here I reached out and he really is the nicest dude. He makes this music entirely by himself, playing everything live except some drum programming strictly for the love of it and will actually politely ask you not to pay for it, although I say if the spirit moves you he certainly deserves it.
Anyway, hailing from Victoria Island I believe, Quote (now known as Ueda Kurou although now may not be accurate because I don't think he's releasing music anymore) makes folk bluegrass hip hop a la Buck 65 but different enough to warrant it's own consideration.
It's emotionally vulnerable, achingly sad in places ("Call Me Out") and most of all defiant and honest. Some of the most personal music I've ever heard, and I constantly look for ways to share it with people although it's not for everyone.
Side note, the song "Man Down the Road" actually sparked my love of bluegrass back when I first heard this album. Still listen to that genre today.
Please enjoy, and consider paying a bit because if you do maybe he'll drop some new music soon!
For this week's upload, we're staying in Canada, but this time heading to the prairies with The Intelligentlemen's "Face Value" EP from 2010!
Intelligentlemen was a 5-man group from Saskatoon, SK. Beats Me and DJ Known handled production while Rewind, Polty, and Gescha handled the raps. "Face Value" was the group's third release and was, I believe, meant to lead into another full album release that never came to be. The project consists of 5 tracks and is just a really fun quick prairie crew EP. The lead-off track, "Wasted Years," is a personal favorite (Factor on the beat :))
I don't believe The Intelligentlemen are active any longer. From my understanding, the rappers never really had aspirations to make music any sort of career so when grown life came around, they were happy to pursue other interests (I'm not sure about the producers.) The group's most known member is likely Gescha, who released a solo album produced by Factor and Muneshine (with features from Awol, Moka, Kay, and others,) is now a photographer/videographer I think.
The EP was originally released for free, but the links are long dead, so we're reviving it here. Props to the DITF scene crew (RIP.) Enjoy!
Today's new music rec is bRavenous' "Ghosts of Rockingham" album!
I have been familiar with bRavenous' name for a while but I admit, I hadn't listened to a full project from him until last year's "Flaunting Imperfections." I'm not typically a fan of a lot of East Coast Canadian Hip Hop nor do I typically gravitate towards straight-forward boom-bap, so while I recognized bRavenous' general ability to rap - that album didn't really impress me.
Then last week, I see a new album from the man and while I was tempted to skip it, the multiple Ghettosocks features + the hermitofthewoods feature caught my eye. I threw it on in the background but was quickly drawn the entire sound of the project. While East Coast boom bap is still very much the theme, "Ghosts of Rockingham" has a much more soulful vibe than "Flaunting Imperfections," in both production and the rapping itself. I noted that bRavenous seemed to have much more control over his delivery and the song concepts hit a lot harder. bRavenous had more to say and had a much better instrumental backing to do it over.
At 15-tracks, the album is a bit long by today's standards, but I enjoyed it all the way through. Peep it below!
This right here is more Buck 65. I wanted to share Pole-Axed: More Rarities today because Trylemma and I are very interested in finding a rip of Boy / Girl Fight: Buck 65 Rarities. This is the first one that the "more" references.
There was a small EP also called Boy / Girl Fight. This one is different, not what we need but still cool. The rarities collection is extremely rare and contains some cool stuff that cannot be had elsewhere.
Same goes for this gem though, I have a very significant Buck collection and this one has 9 songs I can't find anywhere else. Good on that!
Yeah if you have Boy / Girl Fight: Buck 65 Rarities and you want to be cool and send a rip that'd make you a hero of epic proportions to one dude in the USA at least, probably two but don't wanna be presumptuous.
REALLY strapped for time this week. This right here is Buck 65. Goofy, crazy, talented and intelligent jack of all trades hip hop musician. You knew already.
He did a Patreon thingy for a bit, I had no idea at the time. But here it is.
Today's post is, well, yeah, sadly not the worst project title to come from Serpdot!
Serpdot is a Cali rapper who is probably best known for being a part of the late Machina Muerte crew. Serp was also part of The Submersibles with Cadalack Ron (RIP) as well as The Family with Meaty Ogre and Rapewolf. I guess you could fit him along the lines of someone like Andre Legacy, someone who can absolutely rap and who has deep ties to the West Coast underground but also someone who enjoys, errr, troll culture lol.
"Wigger Juggalo" is an album that Serp dropped in 2013, all supposedly recorded on his iPhone lol. Machina Muerte members stop by throughout, including Cadalack Ron who pops up on the last four tracks as The Submersibles. This isn't great or even that good, but it is lol. This project dropped on Serp's Bandcamp (along with a couple of other projects) but that Bandcamp is MIA at this point and I believe Serp may have even changed his name? Anyhow, DL if you dare!
It's been a pretty cool month for Prairie Rap. Factor Chandelier's "Time Invested II" is rolling out promo (check out the new Def3 single!,) Epic's classic "8:30 In Newfoundland" got a re-release, and the guys over at Endemik have offered up the new free "They Fired With Their Lives" project!
Endemik Remote Ensemble is Soso, Maki, Sign One, Hermitofthewoods, EMC, and Deadly Stare. The concept of this project is interesting. Each of the six guys started making a beat and would then pass that beat to another of the producers to add onto until all six of them had worked on all six beats (at which point the creation was passed back to the original producer to finish things up.) A potentially messy project ends up working very well to the extent that things often sound like one person behind all of the tracks. Check it out below and DL it for Free!
It's free music Friday again at UGF, so here's a goodie from Los Feo Face and Grimm Image Records dopesmith James Barrie aka Nabahe. This guy is an expert at dropping gritty ass lyrical content over interesting and unusual production.
Unfortunately his work has become very difficult to locate and his old label basically took all it's music underground forever, so I believe you can only get this album here ATM. Aren't you glad you tuned in today??
This is the one guys. Give me a second though to provide the context.
It's probably well known at this point that Australia's own Thorts is a friend of UGF. He's always happy to share his work with us and refers countless other folks over for promo posts as well, always great music and always great people. His credentials are solid as hell in the indie world as well, he's done songs with everyone from Fang Over Fist's master beatsmith Whatever Cecil to Staplemouth. Pretty much if you and I like even a little bit of the same music you already like Thorts, whether or not you know it.
My only real issue (although it's actually made reviewing much easier for the 60 hour work week dudes like myself) is the length of his releases. I at least like everything he puts out but I often find myself really wanting a nice meaty helping of his quirky / dark personality and excellent taste in production, he does tend to put out a lot of nice bite sized offerings but often not long enough to really fall in to. We last got that with 2020's Weightlifters with Smokey131 which was as refreshing and different as it was dope and dark. If you don't have it yet, give that one a listen here. We get it again on Hanky Man. This is indeed the one.
France's Haunted Days is a great producer as well, I don't want to leave out that fact. I knew this already from their work with Variex on the "Barbwire Necklace" remix with Witches Teat, but this album to me really showcased the beauty and complexity of their compositions. Rarely have I encountered a more "visual" producer. These beats evoke imagery both weird and stunning, and you need to experience that to really get the point I'm trying to make, so here's what they did to someone else's psyche:
Soput them together and we have Hanky Man. Thort's old soul aesthetic, darkly comic viewpoint and willingness to be brutally honest (to the point of being a little gross, like on the title track but we forgive him because that shit was funny) pair perfectly with Haunted Days scratchy, dreamy and melodic soundscapes. This album is one of those rare treats where you're really sad when it ends. I don't have much else to say except that the guest roster is perfect, it doesn't rely to heavily on other talent but it makes great use of the cast it has (Nolto especially is as always phenomenal on "Dense", a sociopolitical tirade which is sadly more timely than ever).
Give this a try. I think if you want to get to know Thorts, grab a pair of headphones, your psychoactive of choice (or lack of one of choice), close your eyes and hit play. There's enough that's good here for any fan of hip hop to truly find something they love.
The whole thing drops March 4th, but preorder a cassette at El Gran E Records here (these guys are knocking it out of the park lately... And they've got a Noah23 album coming soon...)if you're outside Australia and get a digital copy here for those of you closer to Thort's home base (but no cassettes anymore...). Damn that wound up being a very complicated sentence. Whatever, I'm tired it's Monday night. Buy the album!
I gotta do it. I have to at least mention what's happening over in Europe. I wish I could do more but I just want to express solidarity with the Ukrainian people (I am one at least partly), express admiration for the way they've stood up and held on to their homeland and ask myself if I were in that situation if I could do what they have. It's a blessing that we rarely have to fight for the freedom we take for granted in the Western world. But too often I think it makes me forget just how precious it is, and how quickly it can be taken away by paranoid authoritarians and the people who think those dictators are wonderful geniuses.
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