Discography
Sounds Like
Sigur Ros, Matmus, Mogwai, Tricky, Mos Def, Common, Saul Williams, Dead Can Dance, Gorillaz, Kanye West, Portishead |
If you think about it, ambient navel-gazer music and incisive rap are probably the strangest musical bedfellows possible- but that's what Reality Serum is producing, under the new genre 'Trans-Urban', and it's pretty damn exciting, to say the least.
Camanche and Twizle- the former brings the hip-hop, the latter the ambient guitar- are two Long Island accidental bandmates. Twizle's cred as a Beatles Sgt-Pepper era guitarist is such that he actually appeared in the recent film Across the Universe, but that's beside the point. They're genuinely doing something so new and interesting that I'm stumbling over myself to share it.
Think Sigur Ros or the much-mourned Dead Can Dance (Eastern chords, adagio tempo, lush and complex sounds, barely any beat beyond sparse bass), overlaid seamlessly with spoken-word, rather like Saul Williams, and you're getting close. It's Tricky if he and Mos Def took a wrong turn into Mogwai territory at night- vaguely haunting, and can be slightly jarring if you've always taken your hip-hop plain with crunchy beats and little more.
Putting rap vocals in a very large and sprawling musical landscape, which is what ambient music is, is a risk, and it's tough to balance the hard with the soft. Sometimes I came away wishing that the vocals took more of a prominent role- they can get swallowed by all the washes of sound- or that there was more of a sense of urgency to match them.
It is important, though, to recognise good music when it comes your way, and trust me, this is very good music. It makes you listen, it intrigues you and pulls you in. One of the things which often isolates people from the mellow navel-gazing genre is that it doesn't grab listeners- it's background noise but doesn't engage- and sometimes hip-hop is criticised for sounding too harsh and simplistic. Maybe Trans-Urban is a way to fix both criticisms.
I know, I know, I'm making some grand claims here- but Reality Serum are making alchemy out of their crossover, and you should give them a listen. It's that simple.
They appear not to have any touring dates coming up because they're heading back into the studio, which is a shame. However, you can get their CD, 'Hop In', via iTunes, CDBaby or PayPlay.
12/13/2007 19:27:27
jennifer
my♥posts
myspace.com
supplerecords
Recent Comments