Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Sole & Ravi Zupa - The Pyre(Cd & booklet) [self release - 2010]

“The Pyre” is an audio/visual project that brings together Ex Anticon, hard hitting and mould breaking rapper Sole. And Denver based poet-painter, sculptor, film artist and activist Ravi Zupa.  The release is made up of a  72 page booklet and a full length CD- the CD features Sole’s epic  poem  put to music, and the booklet takes in Sole's words illustrated by Ravi Zupa.

The CD features fourteen tracks in all and finds it Sole reciting and semi-rapping his complex yet rewarding texts over a mixture of lo-grade and 80’s sounding synth textures,  battered  and stark hip-hop beats, and creative yet stripped and worn sample textures.  Musically this is a mixture of Man'sbestfriend (Soles more free flowing and experimental project) 2007 instrumental album Poly.Sci.187, his more approachable Man'sbestfriend  work and the more soundtrack based and moody elements of his solo work.The poems text is a thoughtful, angered and sometimes humoured mixture of social, political, environmental and apocalyptic led prose.  On the whole the album keeps a nice and listenable balance between spoken word, creative raping and stark hip-hop  beat  ribbed soundtrack album.


The 72 paged stapled A5 booklet features a colour cover, and inside seventy tow pages of Ravi Zupa original drawings mixed with and illustrating Sole's texts. Zupa drawings mix together elements of German Renaissance, Japanese Block art, Religious Iconography from Europe, Asia and pre-Columbian South America, 20th century revolutionary propaganda and slight hints of surrealism- all of which nicely deepens and opens up poems text even more.

All in all “The Pyre” is very interesting and rewarding meeting between the avant, wordy and angered poetics of Sole, and the impressive mixed art displines of Ravi Zupa work.

Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5

Roger Batty
Latest Reviews

Sole & Ravi Zupa - The Pyre(Cd & ...
“The Pyre” is an audio/visual project that brings together Ex Anticon, hard hitting and mould breaking rapper Sole. And Denver based poet-painter, sculpt...
080226   400 Lonely Things - Creature ...
060226   PBK & Howard Stelze - She Thi...
060226   Wilt - Mold The Earth
060226   Andreas Rönnquist - The Fou...
060226   Vampire Zombies…from Space ...
060226   This Is What I Hear When You ...
060226   Niacinamide - The Eyes Of Ages
060226   Aberdeen Abattoir - Only Pain...
050226   Crash And Burn - Crash And Bu...
050226   Visitors from the Arkana Gala...
Latest Articles

Crude ‘n’ Hope-corroding Wall...
Back in 2024, I got my first taste of Absurd Reality, and I was so impressed by how crude and nasty its take on walled noise was. Behind the project is South...
290126   Crude ‘n’ Hope-corroding ...
231225   Creepy Images Books - Killer Art
221225   Best Of 2025 - Music, Sound &...
041225   The Spectral Sounds of The Pr...
281025   Michael Hurst Interview - Unb...
071025   Xiphos - The Rise And Fall Of...
030925   Third Window Films - A Label ...
130825   HNW fest- Barcelona- 12th Apr...
250725   Raté interview - Walled-in F...
180625   Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sha...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2025. Twenty four years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom