Dreamy Meat Cleaver - EP (2003)

 

 

Recently I was very generously given a collection of rips from the Household Nameless collective (as well as a huge selection of hip hop from the somewhat derisively termed "flyover" states.) To this charitable comrade, you know who you are, thanks!!!! And for the rest of ya'll, as per my promise going back years I will pass on anything gained from having this blog to you, our awesome readers. In that vein (Vain? Vane?), here is Dreamy Meat Cleaver!

This could not be a more interesting ensemble. We've got Babelfishh, Edison, and Samiam (as well as "Lacey" and a name written in illegible cursive that I can't decipher. Sorry if that was any of you.). It didn't take long to figure out that Samiam is Sam King, aka Lewee Regal who is absolutely dope singing or rapping with one of the most distinctive voices in the game right now. Lucky for all of us he's been working with Ceschi and Fat Mike of NOFX to put out a punk rap album that is already shaping up to be the album of the decade (save for the D.O.C.'s cringe worthy line about fingering people who probably don't want to be fingered on "Fast Ones". Damn shame too because that track is mindblowing. I'm doing my best to block that bit out.)

You can probably figure out what this is just from that list of names. It's abstract hip hop with folk punk overtones, sporting fantastic production the likes of which only Edison has ever really been capable (while that's not true it sounds good, and I do have a very high opinion of Edison's skill level as a producer).

Anyway enough from me. Enjoy!

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Babel Fishh - Exit Lever (2004)

 

 

Hey! So for today I've got this, one of the aforementioned Babelfishh's earliest efforts going back a shocking 17 years... an era when no one knew covid nor covfefe and life simpler, sweeter and more orgasmic. Unless I misremember.

I picked this one because I don't feel like I need to explain much since I did already on Tuesday and I'm feeling quite lazy. This is the same weird nasally voiced fishh, although doing a very different sound. Less Moodie Black more Why?, the droning static and distortion is muted in favor of jazzy acoustic samples and lo-fi drums.

This is not one of my favorites of his, it's very strange and in places too strange to truly enjoy. That said, it's still interesting and it does have it's moments. Later in his career he figured out a good balance between songwriting and creative exploration and releases like The Use of of and Father's First Musket are in my opinion some of his best work.

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New Music: Babelfishh - Coma Worthy

 

 

Wow, it's my week again! Time is flying like crazy this year, and bringing with it an absolute flurry of great album releases from artists who've been impressing for years at this point.

Today I want to focus on the newest cassette release by one of my favorite left field weirdos out there, Babelfishh. Babelfishh has returned after several years of relative silence (although he did drop a short one with Dug Yuck as Goats Gloom here) to bring us Coma Worthy, a drony, spacey and dark slice of noise rap hell perfect for a warm spring day at the end of a pandemic.

Coma Worthy is very much Fishh, containing the usual distortion and unpleasant noises to showcase his nasally complex poetry. This one is more Eyeless Terror than To Do Without, which was an acoustic folk rap album that I really enjoyed. Coma Worthy dispenses with any attempts at accessibility and lets Fishh and a few fellow 667ers just rip shit up on the mic.

To be honest I still haven't given this one a full listen, haven't had the time yet. However I love this dude's work, and I want to promote it so it seems the perfect choice for my Tuesday entry.

 

Get Coma Worthy here on cassette only, or here from Fishh himself!

Babel Fishh - Fathers First Musket (2008)

For today I've got something I believe hasn't been seen around the internet much, if ever. Fathers First Musket is Babel Fishh (Babelfishh)'s EP from 2008, released on picture disc by Ooh! That's Heavy in an edition of only 220 copies (of which I own 2, more on that later). This album is an interesting work in the Texan horrorcore / folk hop artist's catalogue given that it seems to mark his transition from acoustic based punk folk rap (a sound reminiscent of Dose One x Astronautalis) to the more doom metal sludge rap style found on his tape releases beginning with 2011's Eyeless Terror.

The production found here (with contributions from Papervehicle's own Edison and Univac) is distorted, discordant and unsettling. His topics usually cover the life of the working class, with a healthy dose of Texas history along with a world weary cynicism. His voice as I mentioned above is not dissimilar to Dose one, but I find the worlds that Babel Fishh builds to be more interesting to listen to, they're more immersive and have much less tendency to veer off into irritating singing. This is one for the fans of the weird stuff, but it might well be an enjoyable listen for punk and metal fans as well.

Note: The following is mostly a story about making this rip. Skip to the download link if you don't care, I won't take it personal!

Now, creating this particular rip was something of a challenge. I'm fairly new at ripping vinyl, and what I understand from this experience is that the grooves on these picture discs are fairly shallow, which means if the counterweight is not correctly set they WILL skip. This also means that to get a steady play you wind up with very heavy drum sounds, the potential for distortion, and a disc that won't last very long with repeated listens (anyone who knows if this information is wrong please comment, I'm a self taught vinyl person and would welcome any corrections in my understanding. The above is my personal conjecture).

My first copy had been rendered virtually unlistenable by the previous owner, so after years I found a second one that was "mint". To get a rip without skipping took several hours (this is a 10 min album), and while I really like Babel Fishh, listening to pieces of his songs over and over again was not something I'd have wished on anyone I had any affection for at all.

But it was worth it, to get a clean sounding rendition (as clean as it was meant to sound, it's still Fishh) and to be able to share it with all of you. Cheers!

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I just noticed we reached 5,000 views today! Trylemma and I want to thank all of you for your interest, this project has been a lot of fun and knowing people are seeing it makes it even better. See you next week!