(03.15.07) Deviance starts with fragments of radio shows mixed with static noise, but just at the end of this intro track there’s a voice you should be familiar with if you’re a regular of these pages, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, shame on you and search for Digital::Nimbus. After the suent annunciation, the first hectic beat is thrown in, and you must surrender to the flow of drums. Basically one should speak of Mothboy in terms of hip-hop based electronica, but this could suggest links with Merck Records or Prefuse73 that are a bit misleading. The beats on Deviance are deeply hip-hop based and there are many instrumental samples, but the tempo is quite fast and the drums are old-skool heavy –sounding round and warm with no signs of glitches or minimalism. “Triptych” is fully loaded of fat funky riffs, “I Hit It I Caught It I’m Out” features a flickering rhythm and most notably deadly rattling sub bass pulses while the title track can literally make you jump to the roof with a bouncy straight beat.
There’s one thing about this record that puzzles me, and namely is the presence of “Selfish Plan” towards the end, because it’s an isolated punching techno monster that creates a striking contrast with the previous “I Can See Cities” that instead is a creepy, muffled hip-hop piece featuring lyrics by Akira The Don. I have nothing against pummeling techno, on the contrary I dig the track very much, but you can easily figure how this tune, akin to Surgeon or Speedy J, stands out among the others. That said, I wouldn’t mind an entire record in this style. On the opposite side, “Outside” and “Down” are downtempo episodes with addition of guitars and vocals, maybe a bit too mellow for my taste but the dynamic tension built during “Down” with growing feedback works greatly as a closure.
Deviance is a rich sounding and rewarding album, with more than a twist to surprise the listener; I would recommend it as a complementary release of Lapsed eponymous album, also on Ad Noiseam, to get two nice examples of electronic infused hip-hop.
Deviance is out now on Ad Noiseam. Buy it at Amazon.com
