New Music: Thorts & Joel Siméus - The Happy Little Vegemite EP

 

 

A lot of you may be thinking, "wow Dimxsk reviews Thorts a lot". The reasons are threefold: 1) Thorts is f*cking dope, 2) Thorts lets us hear his music ahead of time for review purposes and 3) Thort's albums are short making them easy for me to review with my current work schedule. Take The Happy Little Vegemite EP. At 4 tracks long this is a bite sized treat of dissonant noise, surreal imagery and dark cynicism. It features one of my current favorite producers and one of my current favorite rappers working together as they did before as Thoel Simerville, this time with Joel handling production solely and Thorts doing all the rapping (hence the name change and Thorts "pouring his f*cking Thoel out on "Good Egg").

So for edification I asked Thorts a very simple but probably a very common question. What the fuck is Vegemite mate? He had this to say:

"Vegemite is a spread for toast (haha), an Australian one that most people in the rest of the world absolutely hate and are disgusted by but we are brought up on it so it's normal for us.

Here is a commercial for it from back in the day"

A commercial for Vegemite from back in the day

 

I guess it could be said that titling this from something that is in a way very personal for the rapper (sounds like Vegemite is the wheaties of Oz) is fitting. This is Thorts at his most stream of conscious, throwing a bird at convention. The lack of vocal contributions from Joel make it a bit more accessible for those who don't speak Swedish (unless you're like me and don't necessarily care) but this is still a very very weird album as a result. It is also so far removed from Long Distance (his most recent EP with Whatever Cecil, which is beautiful and intricate but also much easier on the ears) that it again impresses upon me how versatile the rapper can be. Probably a skill set that comes from such a long time in the game (Thorts is a vet in the Australian scene), leaving him familiar enough with the art to bash headlong through genre barriers and express himself freely.

There's not much else to say here. I liked this EP a lot, it's got moments of darkness (the ironically title "Happy Little Vegemite" which has a grimy and grinding noise beat that brings out that aggressive wordplay) moments of levity (or at least a more upbeat tone in the also ironically titled "Rainy Day" contemplating the fleeting nature of existence and time) and moments of sheer weirdness (in "Lake Baikal" as in shit be deep like). And it may be the result of talking a bit with the guy, but I feel like Thort's music has a sort of personality to it that is completely unique to the rapper and can be readily delved into and experienced through the speakers. I'm curious to see if any of you agree actually, or if I'm just crazy. But the metaphorical fourth wall is missing here I feel like...

You really just have to hear it. If Thoel Simérville was too Anticon doing Nine Inch Nails for you but you felt like you could've gotten with it had it been just a bit more accessible, then this is your solution. It won't put a rose in every cheek, but maybe just a cheek here or there, and I can only imagine Joel and Adrian don't mind that too much.

Here's the video for my favorite track off the album, "Rainy Day":

 Get The Happy Little Vegemite EP here, and thanks as always for reading. You guys are the sh*t. See you Friday and hopefully on time this time !

New Music: Thoel Simérville - Singer-Songwriter Demos Vol. 1

So a special treat crash landed over the weekend, and as excited as I was to listen to it I felt like I just had to help promote it. Thoel Simérville is the collaboration between Australia's number one dark folk rap poet Thorts (Sommerville), and Sweden's number one noise and folk hop producer / rapper Joel Siméus. Hence Thoel Simérville. Pretty clever right?

The result is quite the strange experience. We have here an album born of anxiety, anger and paranoia, lightly laced with a rather twisted sense of humor. Thorts finds himself working with production and a vocal style from Joel that allows him to be free of the constraints he's often faced in the past, when his rap while often undeniably good, did not do much to venture beyond the bounds of what others had done before. Basically just good somber folk influenced hip hop with personal and emotional themes. Fairly serious.

Here we get a real glimpse of the man who recently released a free promo EP with production "jacked" from Haunted Days & Witches Teat, hence the title Jacked Off a Ghost. Thorts is a bit of a weirdo with a willingness to be whimsical in a vaguely sick and dark manner. Not a bad thing at all, and Joel's influence seems to have opened the door to that in a big way. Songs swing wildly from dark ambient static to carnival sounding craziness, and Thorts manages to match Joel and keep these songs interesting. It also allows the album to blend together, almost the nonsensical dreamlike experience of sleeping with a Nicotine patch on. You may know what I mean.

Sonically the production is almost a cross between Joel's work with Milled Pavement and his more current catalogue with empty space. We have both the industrial, noise and discordant quality along with his deep voiced Swedish raps that reminds me of his more recent material, along with some acoustic and melodic work that seems to be a revival of some of what he did with Decorative Stamp. Fans of either label should find something to enjoy here. Often these sounds can be found on the same track as the two rappers trade English and Swedish lyrics about (I don't speak Swedish unfortunately but I can speak on what Thorts is rapping about) mental illness, emotions and world politics.

The demo like quality in some places makes me feel a bit like they haven't tried to take themselves too seriously, and depending on what you're looking for from Thoel Simérville that could be a good or a bad thing. There's a very left field, stream of consciousness feel to these songs, and in certain places it makes them difficult to listen to (the repeated use of the c-word on "Är Det Dåligt" is unnecessary, yeah Trump sucks, anyone who matters is aware of this. Useful commentary in this instance is more appreciated than name calling, and I absolutely know Thorts is capable of that).

That said, this album is good for what it is. Two artists stretching their creative muscles and enjoying the experience without too much concern for sounding a certain way. You'll either like this or absolutely hate it. Fair warning, I like it but then I love Babelfishh and those folks so...

Get Singer-Songwriter Demos Vol. 1 from Thorts himself here, or on Joel's empty space collective Bandcamp as an extremely limited cassette with exclusive artwork here.

Featured Label: Empty Space Collective

Well, this week I wanted to do something a bit different than my traditional album reviews, and focus on a grassroots label I've recently discovered and fallen in love with. Empty Space Collective is a Swedish noise / drone / rap indie enterprise run by Joel Siméus (formerly of Milled Pavement) and 82 (fka åttatvå which, coincidentally, is Swedish for the number of years it would take me to pronounce that, and even more fka Plunge Attempt). You may be familiar with both of these musicians, Joel produced a large body of work for Decorative Stamp, one of my favorite hip hop labels to date and also released a few albums for Milled Pavement, another favorite (Country Pink for example is great, and features raps from Plunge Attempt and THMS who you may also be familiar with through his New Cocoon release entitled, ahem.. Glömda Egenskaper. Anyways...) before striking it out on his own. His solo work, most of which is available free, can be found here.

My first exposure to the music of Empty Space was an impulse buy of the MP (getting tired of typing these labels so I'm going with acronyms) self titled release Extendead Plunge Attempt. It had an exceptional list of guest features including members of Escape Artists, Ira Lee, Evak (of Work or his album with Edison) and the aforementioned THMS as Mr. T. DJ Extend's somber guitar laced production made for a fantastic canvas upon which Plunge Attempt painted his depressing and unconventional stream of consciousness raps. After thoroughly enjoying that album, I never heard much from Plunge again until I stumbled upon ESC's Bandcamp and started downloading left and right.

Working with Joel as the distortion and screech laced Amputee and Marcello Martins as the more melodic and somber Melancholic Tendencies, Plunge has been extremely busy but speaking to a fairly limited audience as far as I can tell. I feel like for the weirdos like myself who are looking for something a bit different this label is absolutely worth a look. From IHAA's Damien to San Diego's Tenshun; there's even some production from Pete Sasqwax (remember Ten Gallon Hat / Float Yer Kegs?) and Maki, ESC has a huge collection of both Swedish and English raps and production ranging from brutal to beautiful.


Treat yourself to something strange today, and support a label that's entirely funded by hard work and love of music here.

James P. Honey & Joel Siméus - Book of Marion (2011)

Since we're running late today, I figured I'd opt for a short post and download. Book of Marion is the vinyl only collaboration between James P. Honey & Joel Siméus. It's one of my personal favorite "abstract" albums, with haunting and melodic production backing dreamy spoken word-esque poems by James.

This album is available for free download from his Bandcamp (and luckily he describes it in more detail than I ever could, seems to be really proud of it...), but each side cuts off about two minutes from the end, so you wind up missing a bit of the last track of each side. This complete version has the tracks split and labeled, in 320 kbps (made by yours truly).

Also, after thinking it over, Trylemma and I have decided that the Wednesday Review / Friday Download schedule is difficult to maintain. New releases ebb and flow, and time constraints can make putting together a thoughtful and worthy tribute to the artists we love every Wednesday difficult at times. So expect more downloads on Wednesdays, although we will still be doing reviews and other special features whenever possible. Peace!

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