So where’s the truth... In-between? Hmmm no. When reading bad reviews of this album, one can only notice that they mostly come from people who profess the idea of progression in hiphop, or rather of evolving in a closed system. You know, you can do stuff, but make sure you never cross the “borders” of the said system. Now, that’s not what I call progression. If you share those people opinions, well you can stop reading this review, so you don’t lose any time. For when it comes to transgression of rules, Themselves are masters...

Themselves are Jel (also in Deep Puddle Dynamics, Jel has released two instrumental albums under is own name) and Dose One (Deep Puddle Dynamics, Greenthink, cLOUDDEAD, his own albums and countless collaborations, among which feature works with Boom Bip, DJ Krush and Hood). As said above, they both belong to the Anticon collective, the much talked about, hyped, controversial Oakland-based label.

The no music is hiphop meeting Boards of Canada, ambient, white noise and musique concrète in a disaffected mental asylum, the meeting being put on tape by two mad scientists hoping to follow the steps of the legendary Dr. Frankenstein.
And those two scientists seem to have listened much too often to The Beatles’ A day in the life, that great song bringing together two unfinished tracks: on the whole album there is not a single track finishing in the way it has started. Sonic cut-ups.... Yummy!!!!
While rhythmically most of the album is what you’d expect from an hiphop CD, it’s the way Jel and Dose play around with their songs that is interesting, bringing all sorts of sounds, daring everything, never limiting their creativity. Jel seems to work on the one-idea-a-second basis and vocally, Dose goes from machine gun rapping (try Live Trap, it it’s impressive...) to  “contemplative” singing. One hell of a producer and one hell of a MC...
The best tunes are Good people check and its tribute to Ennio Morricone (check it, hilarious), the spacey Live Trap (and its aforementioned über-fast rapping), the absolute gem Paging Dr Moon or Gun and its keyboards inviting you to dance for a while, the more “traditional” Dark sky demo and finally the oh so impressive last song, Hat in the wind, a real masterpiece...

Do not expect any straightforward lyrics, any “Guide on how to get out of the ghetto” or “The drug dealer handbook” or “How to pick up hoes and bitches” or “Where to buy the finest jewels and cars”...  Technically speaking, there is a link between Dose’s lyrics and William Burroughs’ poetry: very abstract texts, reminding me of cut-ups (words and sentences are put together more or less randomly, resulting in [no] non-sense texts). Also, it seems that Dose One likes to write down his dreams and use them in his lyrics. Some might be put off by that kind of texts but I consider them a pleasant read, especially the last song : “your lover is at yoga breaking a sweat. While you shoot mid-morning coffee nerved on the front steps. Pooring its slave labor likeliehood allover your wounded lung” or “I want to masturbate in a locked planitarium”.

The debate as to know whether what they are doing is hiphop or not is raging. Non-sense!  Dose One and Jel (as much as anyone in the Anticon crew) are coming from there, that’s for sure. The thing is that they have much wider tastes than most people in the hiphop scene, which enables them to mix together loads of stuff, to create very varied music and to go further than most of their harsher critics. A lot of people say that arguing is a proof that the scene is alive. Why not... But in such a debate, you can only hear the sound of dying animals, of an endangered specie (well I wish...): musical fundamentalists. Let’s just hope that the WWF won’t interfere... Anyway it’s sad to see that some will diss this just because it’s said not to be real hiphop. Fuck, ain’t we supposed to love music? Is it that important to say that “in the 90’s it was like that, less abstract music, meaningful (sic) texts...”.  I don’t know about you, but I live in 2002, I’d rather listen to good music (well, what I consider good) than to bad, repetitive, heard before, out-of-date music. Above all I prefer mixes of cultures to homogeneous cultures. This go for food, girls, cinema... and of course for music and Themselves.

MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC, not hiphop or heavy metal or doom-rock or rockabilly or britpop or IDM or 2-step or grinding crushing gore core...

Pitchforkmedia said they were crap, John Peel and The Wire claim that they are dope. If I were you I’d put more faith in good ol’ John tastes. Open-minded MUSIC for open-minded people.