cLOUDDEAD - avant abstract hiphop - believe the hype or not?

the thing with cLOUDDEAD is its really difficult to digest. this is what makes it so fine. there's so much weirdness going on here - and not just tiresome wackiness-by-rote, we're talking absolute uncharted waters here - that its a challenge to follow where its going. i like the challenge. i like sounds that are all murky'n'shit. i like spazzy wordgluts that i don't quite understand and that take a whiles to decode. i like albums that i don't quite understand and have to decode. that's what this album is - three months into hearing it for the first time and playing it almost everyday, i still hear tracks and tracts i'm not familiar with, it still feels fresh, which is a priceless quality in these autopilot days.

Because I've just heard "Dead Dogs Two", the new cLOUDDEAD single, and it's very confusing and very fucking good. It's about 5 songs in one - starts with droning organ, two-part harmonies from Dose One and, uh, one of the other fellas, skippety glitch mixing of the vocals, then a lolloping rhythm arrives about a minute in, abscract/poetic lyrics, a strangled laugh and stronger beats, a tick-tock clocky click, "to be dead-centre of a curious crowd", whistling radio signals...it's like...god I don't know what it's like, but the new album's sitting by my speaker begging, begging to be listened to, and if it's all as good as this single, then fuckety me if it ain't gonna be amazing.

(also a fairly ineffectual Boards Of Canada remix of the single, doesn't add an awful lot but takes lots away for some reason. Meh)

nb: an instrumental clouddead record would be nice, if yr listening big dada.

IF "unconventional vocals" = grating and grating = aWesome, THEN cLOUDDEAD RULEZZZZ.

IF, however, grating still = scratch one's eyes out and kick in the speakers, THEN cLOUDDEAD ain't so hot.

I bought this disc a long while back, gave it every chance (headphones, car speakers, home stereo) and not once did it fail to annoy the crap out of me.

Emperor cLOUDDEAD has no clothes.

(Although at 30 second intervals, well, it's friggin genius!)

But forgive me if I feel that defeats its purpose.

Because I'm interviewing all three of cLOUDDEAD (separately) on Tuesday evening, on the phone. Anybody want to ask anything?

"Dose One, why do you sound like you're trying to be the hip-hop Daffy Duck?" Hmmm.

Although actually I am intrigued to learn how they hooked up with Hood, who heard/contacted who first, etc.

Emo rap sucks cuz Ice Cube will put a tek to Slug's neck.

really i think its funny calling anything involving Doseone "emohop" -- I mean, hate it or like, there is hardly anything "emotionally straight forward or in plain language" in anything he has done. try again. thanks.

he's made some dece movies as well - "Barbershop"

I hear ya, they don't seem to get much love round these parts. But this confuses me, especially having heard Ten and fallen for it bigtime. I don't get the emo-hop thing whatsoever.

you could say that about r kelly
you could say that about kelis
you could say that about lil jon
you could say that about obie trice
you could say that about ...

my point is -- and this irrelevant of if cLOUDDEAD is good or bad or indifferent -- much of the criticism against them from the hardcore hip hop contingent focuses on how they don't fit genre rules, etc as opposed to the composition of the material, how well the lyrics work (which is different than "I hate these lyrics because they dont go bling bling") or the beats work, or the samples, etc.

moreover, hip hop is even more antagonistic towards its underground than even rock was in its day.

even though i think most of what anticon (the 'underground') is doing is kinda ick, i've been meaning to pick up their first full length for a long time

I like Jack Cole's most recent post in this thread, by the way. Not enough for me to say it's OTM, but it's an interesting thought.

i think that's a one-sided interpretation of the "keeping it real" strawman. realness (as i understand it, as i think other people use it too) isn't only a matter of content - i think it's also a matter of keeping the music grounding in aesthetics, or sensual pleasure. the original sense of "keeping it real" wasn't "keeping it streets", it was "i'm focusing on my flow and my music" and not the backup singers, not the fancy stage show, not the mc hammer pants, not the haircut, etc.

so apparently cLOUDDEAD is doing something "new" with the music, or moving into "uncharted territory" - but i have to imagine up my pleasure in that if their voices are nasal, if their beats are too angular, if their flows are awkward, my appreciation of their because an act of ideation, a state of intellectual self-satisfaction for stretching myself: "wow, i get it! i hear differently from the average person". like listening to autechre, it's often not "real" pleasure.

except, of course, when it is. because often autechre actually *are* pretty, and cLOUDDEAD does hit lots of good notes (instrumental and lyrical) ... but i still think collapsing the "not keeping it real" criticism into a perceived appreciation for negritude or something on my part (and on the part of others who use the criticism) is way off base.

now, when did i ever bring race into this? let me check? oh, that's right -- never.

as for clouddead's jokes, they have the right to remain silent (anything they say or do...)

But I think they *do* care insofar as they want NOT to fit into that version.

the problem with much discourse about "hip hop" is this sense of genre purity -- a strict codex of rules to be adhered to, and if any of them are broken -- to the discard pile of contamination!

moreover, why does one have to imagine "hip hop" doesnt exist? why cant the record be listened to for what it is -- for what's on the record?

it's one thing to say, "I dont like cLOUDDEAD because i find Doseone's nasely voice grating" or "I dont think how they construct their absurdism works" or "they sound like a children's record" and another to discard them because they dont adhere to some platform handed down from above.

many will disagree with me, and im not say its necessarily successful in the case of cLOUDDEAD, but isn't one beautiful aspect of music the collisions between forms and the results?

(the HHIBH ref was aimed at the "rap is not supposed to be experimental" mindset, fwiw)

I'm pretty sure it was UNironically titled "music for the advancement of hip hop." Seriously.

I don't know why you brought up race...I didn't either. I don't think anyone in this thread did.

I don't like anticon because I find their music obnoxious, not because of some hip hop purist reasoning...I just don't enjoy listening to it. Similar to how I don't enjoy Genesis or something...the whole "intellectual" "groundbreaking" work seems a bit too forced.

PS: Pharell created the trucker hat movement! I think when I said waves of "suburban trucker hat wearing teens" it was clear I wasn't referring to De La Soul or Pharell, but a generalization that refers to those who think that hip hop was too dumb to listen to until they heard anticon, and suddenly they're down.

I disagree with this; while some albums GAIN from being looked at in an idealized "context-less" universe, some albums definitely gain from being looked at IN context of their musical culture.

i often think of hip-hop being "radio friendly" if only in song length / scope. there are of course records that have excellent cohesion as a whole, but clouddead seem to chronically make concept albums. i agree with matt in that i might call the album "not real hip hop" but not in a bad way...

How would you define the cLOUDDEAD sound to someone who is not very familiar with your work?

Odd Nosdam: Well, I guess it’s not hip-hop. I don't know. cLOUDDEAD is melodically delivered poetry over beats with sampled and hand played sounds questionably sequenced into a song that is carefully mixed to insure that the sound that is often referred to as "The cLOUDDEAD Sound" is indeed present.

hippie!

Jesus god.

right?

Completely disagree that cLOUDDEAD won't be listened to in a year's time - Ten is magnificent, and the only reason they won't be talked about in gthe future is because they're not touring the album and have effectively broken up already. Why all the hate?

What do you like listening to when you're at home or touring?
why?: Silver Jews, Fog, Daniel Johnston, Modest Mouse, Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith, My Bloody Valentine, Carly Simon (You're So Vain), Outkast, Pavement, Guided by Voices, Velvet Underground, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada...

Sheds some light on the pointless hip-hop or not debate? I listen to more hip-hop!

that boc remix is beautiful.

Do I have a thread for him! (xp strongo)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0407/harvell.php

Beautiful. :-)

It isn't hip-hop IMO. But it's fucking great whatever it is. First two comparisons that sprung to mind were the first two DJ Martian named all the way upthread. I'm gonna think of 'em as the American Beta Band.

dear adam, im dropping our of art school and thinking of becoming a machete man in the rainforest

feel sorry for all the circa-2004 ilxors upthread w/ too much baggage to appreciate these guys

really, what would be the point of ilm if not for eternally ragging on anticon and def jux

glad i was not an ilxor circa 2005 when Ten was my most listened to album then, the closest i've gotten to really getting these guys again was that 13+God album.

cLOUDDEAD is not hip hop. I mean, literally absolutely nothing about it has anything to do with hip hop. It's not even on anticon. So uptight white boys who fret that if they like something that's not Clipse they'll have their laminated I'm a hip hop fan laminate taken off them shouldn't really need to be so passive aggressive.

I mean, it's glitchy, digital psychedelic, collage, barbershop, spoken word, ambient... but not hip hop.

Yeah, their laminated laminate. Fuck's sake.

What I'm trying to say is: stop fucking reviewing the fans of music rather than the music. It's a red herring at best and dim-witted cuntery at worst.

feel sorry for all the circa-2004 ilxors upthread w/ too much baggage to appreciate these guys

― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Thursday, 8 April 2010 07:17 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

seems pretty good natured and considerate tbh unless anyone wants to argue that disliking Doseone's vocals is the same as hating fun

cLOUDDEAD is not hip hop. I mean, literally absolutely nothing about it has anything to do with hip hop. It's not even on anticon.

with all due respect, john, i think they're all the things you mention, AND hip-hop. check the youtube footage of doseone battling eminem way back when - they're hip-hop, just a very individual strain of it. and cLOUDDEAD wasn't released by anticon, but it WAS by mush, and big dada.

Yeah but I mean DOSEONE is hip hop and Themselves are hip hop and some of Why? is hip hop and SOLE is hip hop but not cLOUDDEAD. IMHO.

I understand what you're saying but no one says that Mondo Cane or Fantomas or Tomahawk are rap rock/rap metal just because they involve Mike Patton. I think people get a bit too precious about hip hop, that's all...

Not you of course.

not being precious abt it at all - the album has breakbeats in places, involves sampling in places, and sequencers in places, and has what i'd define as rapping in places. so it's Hip-Hop, in places, and in ethos and in production techniques. i mean, i don't see Hip-Hop as a narrow church but rather a process or approach. so to me cLOUDDEAD is Hip-Hop, along with all the other stuff it is.

xp!

also prob important to note i haven't read the older sections of the thread above.

talking about artists in relation to some monolithic notion of "hip-hop", even as a very broad "process or approach", can be interesting on a micro level in discussing the structure of the music; where it loses me is when it gets deployed as a lazy heuristic, so that people who might praise cLOUDDEAD's adventurous spirit if dudes were coming from an electronic music background are instead able to write them off as yet another permutation of "wack nerd rap".

XPost: I agree with that totally.

To Stevie: I think we're talking at complete cross purposes here. It has tangential hip hop strands or influences but it's no more hip hop than it is barber shop.

I'm talking more generally about attitudes to what constitutes 'proper' hip hop. Arguments that are ostensibly about the race, class, gender and nationality as well as production techniques etc of mainstream or underground 'real' hip hop artists are often brandished in this instance to make covertly negative comments about the consumers of different types of music. People on message boards seem to hate backpack hip hop (fair enough, a lot of it is shite), but not primarily because of the music (it may come a close second) but because of what they perceive as the kind of people who follow that kind of music. If I hate DJ Shadow, I do so because his music is stodgy, joyless and overproduced - not because white students like it.

The kind of thinking that leads us to DJ Shadow being inauthentic or 'dangerous' to the progression of 'real' hip hop, blinds us to the fact that he used to be really good and not everyone working in his field is terrible. It makes our viewpoints on a whole genre of music unsound. How can hip hop be authentic anyway - it's the least authentic type of music it's possible to imagine.

This kind of attack on stuff like backpack hip hop is generally bogged down by reflexiveness and partial self-recongnition. What you end up with is a load of white, middle class dudes who may or may not wear back packs dissing other white, middle class dudes who may or may not wear back packs over risible ideas of 'authenticity'. In this respect it's as fucking tedious as real metal dullardry or real rock dullardry or REAL FUCKING ALE dullardry. "Yeah, I'm white but I'm not as white as that dude." "Call yourself a trainspotter? I only go do trainspotting on steam trains not deisel trains."

I don't care what other people think and what their motivations are: just what I dig. You dig?

So what I'm saying really, I guess is 'Calm down. Take a pill. It's not even hip hop. It's a beautiful thing because it doesn't even really belong in a genre. Just enjoy it for what it is without getting all fucked up by status anxiety and need to box and label everything.'

And I'm not saying this to you but yelling it feebly into the internet because I've had eight hours sleep this week and too much coffee.

I'm not (and would never) accuse you of being precious.

aw yeah no sweat dudes. tbh i love a shitload of stuff that could be defined as wack nerd rap, and also love a shitload of stuff that is possibly ideaologically oppposed to wack nerd rap on every level. to me, hip-hop is large, it contains multitudes, and rather than get partisan about it i'll just follow my ears, thanks. so to me, saying cLOUDDEAD is hip-hop (along with a tonne of other shit) is just another signifier of all the interesting shit that courses within that first cLOUDDEAD record (never got into ten, don't know why, probably missed a tonne of cool stuff): like, cLOUDDEAD record is all this great stuff - ambient, drone, noise, abstract, cinematic and also Hip-Hop, and hey i love all that stuff incl Hip-Hop, so the Hip-Hop ref. for me isn't a definition so much as another signififer of stuff i'm interested in that's all part of their soundcloud.

shorter version: we're all on the same page, yup

Aw, hahaha! You're both heroically OTM, but I don't think you're fighting anyone! As I keep saying every time I discover a new awesome hip-hop-affiliated act and bump their thread (expect MORE, ILM), it's so refreshing to live in an age where you're NOT gonna get called over some issue of handwringing identity-crisis snark when you express enthusiasm for certain kinds of music.

After precisely one listen to each, self-titled is maybe a tiny bit better, vaster and weirder and more liberated, but Ten is a quickfire rollercoaster ride through some really affecting, tuneful psych clutter - not an album to wander around in amazed, but an album to fire a few synapses and warm the cortex.

It's interesting that me and Stevie come from completely opposite ends to cLOUDDEAD. For me they were a WIRE style group that I liked listening to when I got in, pilled up from Plastic People or Turnmills or whatever.

Nowadays, people discovering in retrospect tend to go through not so much genre-channels as hearsay pick and mix, which is a luxury you wouldn't have had. 'What stuff in this vague area would I like?' doesn't work when 'this vague area' is nascent or yet to be really defined at all. The discourse cLOUDDEAD fit into, for me, is that of loose, psychedelic construction, very much like a number of British bands (including Hood, with whom I gather they collaborated).

Are these the guys with vocals that sound like flight of the concords?

See what I mean?

;-)

think they were a smart band that drew from a lot of different stylistic sources which meant that fans of each of those genres found it kindof easy to be dismissive of them as dabblers or "not real _____" Their eps were awesome, bike is phenomenal esp the "cold lunch" section, dead dogs two is a great single. the weird layering of voices is an indie-rock approach to hip-hop that ends up highlighting something strange and unexpected. love doesone tho anyway.

fucking love this stuff, its about the only stuff from the weirdo is/isnt hip hop backpacker blah blah blah of the time that i can stand anymore tbh. subsequent projects have also been pretty cool, dug themselves more than 13 and god which was kind of one great track and then a bunch of the same track over and over again.

when u say 1 great track do you mean men of station?

i think so? tbh it has been quite a while since i listened to it, so my memory might be slipping.

was banned from playing that in the kitchen of my first student house because the lyrics creeped my housemate out. good times, haven't listened to this stuff in a long time, but i was mad into it at a specific time (along w/ animal collective and matmos, this was like all i listened to abt 5 years ago)

just cuz he hasn't been mentioned here

Beans is good

http://www.myspace.com/mrballbeamakabeans

i particularly like "Only" which is basically like a free jazz album with a busted drum machine...there's not really that much rapping on it even...

but his rapping is cool too and sometimes he does more of that

i wonder if latryx is still good

i bet i would hate mike ladd now but i liked him back when

When I worked with Dose at Amoeba he would always play his own raps on the boombox in the back room.

I also never really got into Ten, maybe I should listen to it again. I also think Why?'s solo stuff is pretty lame. But that first album has so many brilliant moments, it still stands up and apart. As far as hiphop goes it certainly fit into the Antipop/Cannibal Ox sector that was big at the time, but I'm hardly the person to pronounce on how acceptably authentic that was.

"authentic"

After another listen to each, I'd still have the debut ahead (it's AMAZING - really, the closest thing to it in all sorts of ways is The Three EPs) but Ten is a really, really sweet little album and a second listen wouldn't be awry IMO

Tiarnan it's in your opening ILX post that this is (was) one of your favourite bands!

not surprised, i used to play this all the time in first year on the cd player in our class at break. made so many copies of it that year for ppl

""authentic""

yeah Ten is a lovely, lovely thing and would be lovelier but for the entirely reprehensible fucking bullshit of that 'long silence in final track' idiocy

but yeah apart from that it's lovely

never heard the entire peel session i wonder if it is good?

That came with the rest of the download! Um...I'll report back, probably tomorrow.

also recommend the sound of a handshake single loujag (b-side this is abt a city is maybe their best single ever -big michael jackson sample!)

ah cool, I'll Spotify that one!

matt - the third infesticons album came out a couple of months ago, and its awesome

I kind of don't see how you can make any coherent argument for these guys not being hip-hop

can it not matter what they are, but matter that they create awesome music?

NO

these cognitive boxes arent going to fucking fill themselves

LJ, go here next:

This is the long overdue New Kingdom thread

if you haven't already...

it's like Choose Your Own Adventure!

kind of don't see how you can make any coherent argument for these guys not being hip-hop.

With all due respect, then that's kind of your problem. You don't have to agree with me but just read what I've said above and then listen to Bike and you should at least be able to see where I'm coming from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_tNyFV_A50&feature=related

And then Jimmy Breeze.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H43ZE8_v5I&feature=related

I am listening to that album right now, which is what prompted the comment.

Then again, my initial response to Music Has A Right To Children was "this is the best instrumental hip-hop album of 2000".

w/ about flying saucer attack, who odd nosdam is a major fan of and were a big influence on the beats on Ten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hB2C-cw_bc

I don't think I'd heard FSA before right now

I wouldn't really call them hip-hop, no. They seem too shoegazy

nah they're like a lost generation british indie band, just realised id never seen louis post about them even though they're right up his alley and cLOUDDEAD used to drop their name a lot at the time iirc

there is so much I have to listen to

LJ, you also might like the Odd NosDam/Jessica Baliff collab too.

HI DERE: Sorry if I came across as unecessarily grumpy then. It's just the way I see it. I used to have a section of CDs to listen to post club that weren't by any stretch chill music or trip hop and cLOUDDEAD, Boards Of Canada, Odd Nosdam, Dead Cities by FSOL were part of. Now this would include some Young Gods, Walls, Fennez, Pyramids w Nadja, Growing... a sort of deep field digital psychedelic used as a psychic shield to keep away bad thoughts and to hold at bay the temptation to stop lying face down on the living room floor and go and do the dishes.

I do think that Music Has The Right To Children does have pretty crunchy hip hop breaks though...

this is about a city

physics of a bicycle / isn't it remarkable

'the keen teen skip' is all-time

Quite enjoying the Why? album. Wouldn't have been on my radar (anymore) if a friend hadn't put a track on a compilation.

the first album or the latest one?

"The Well I Fell Into".

Dead Dogs Two is all time, especially the BoC mix so I'll always stan for Ten

but the sound of his voice is awful!nb: an instrumental clouddead record would be nice, if yr listening big dada.

Odd Nosdam (producer behind cLOUDDEAD) has a bunch of great stuff you can dive into in a similar vein. The 2020 special edition of cLOUDDEAD has some instrumental tracks but not sure if they're from the album proper or b-side beats (haven't heard it yet)

Boards remixed a Nosdam track off of the Sisters album which is outstanding, but also check out the albums Burner and especially the T.I.M.E. soundtrack for more Oakland stoner Boards adjacent brilliance.

Dude's def a one of a kind in terms of style, simultaneously of a time and timeless.

Oh this looks promising!

https://nosdam.bandcamp.com/album/clouddead-instrumentals-1998-2000

update - the 2020 special edition indeed has the instrumentals from the first album. And the mixes sound much better than the 2014 drop (but not as good as the 2024 remaster, alas)

Okay last post, but just checked out Ten's 2020 deluxe release and that also has instrumentals of the album (and more faithfully presented as opposed to the first record's instrumentals having mostly different track titles and being more raw "beats" rather than the full tracks minus vocals") but also the instrumental of the Boards mix of Dead Dogs Two, which I had actually not heard until today and damn. What a triumph of a track with or without vocals, but without them you can really dive into the details of the track more and appreciate it in a new way. One of my very favorite songs of that entire decade. Stoked this thread led me to finding this so thanks!

yeah, I mean I posted right before you did about the self titled instrumentals but whatever

Good lord I'm getting dyslexic in my old age. I interpreted your comment to be a question rather than a statement. (i.e. reversed "they did" to "did they?" in my head)

oy

octo otm, always thought odd nosdam had a good ear for eerie loops and vibes in his beats. definitely recommend his material under his own name. also don't forget he remixed boc's "dayvan cowboy"!

Given Boards use of the east bay for the cover of Tomorrow's Harvest (photographing SF from Alameda, seemingly from the lot behind St. George's distillery (or Faction Brewery same difference), it feels like Oakland and also Mojave have hugely influenced the Scottish lads, and for that I hold some selfish NorCal and East Bay local pride ha. Hella.