#Dälek #experimental hip hop #industrial hip hop #electronic #glitch hop #noise #avant-garde
Forged in the fires of the East Coast underground music scene in the 90s, Experimental Hip Hop pioneers Dälek have spent decades carving out a unique niche fusing hardcore Hip Hop, noise and a radical approach to sound. Founded by Will Brooks (aka MC Dälek) and Alap Momin (aka Oktopus), Dälek debuted in 1998 with Negro, Necro, Nekros; a sonic tour de force built upon thunderous drums, blissful ambient sections and gritty, insightful lyrics. From the very beginning, Dälek came out the gate, following in the footsteps of their predecessors Public Enemy while drawing from influences as varied as My Bloody Valentine and German experimentalists Faust, Dälek have succeeded in adding completely new textural and structural dimensions to rap music. After signing with Mike Patton’s renowned label, Ipecac Recordings, Dälek went on a virtually unparalleled run throughout the 2000s releasing a string of ambitious and challenging albums including From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots (2002), Absence (2005), Abandoned Language (2007), and Gutter Tactics (2009). A visceral and powerful live act, Dälek spent over a decade touring and bringing their raucous and blistering performances to audiences around the world. From: https://deadverse.com/artists/dalek/
This avant-garde hip-hop stuff is spreading fast. You know the stuff of which I speak; hip-hop built from samples harder to grasp than a wall of Jell-O, whose time signatures change faster than a 15 year-old girl's fashion sense, all strung around beats dirtier than the old man asleep at the bus stop. Innovators like cLOUDDEAD, El-P, and the Anticon Crew have been redefining what hip-hop is for years now, so it's nice that people are finally starting to take notice. If you've been paying any attention, you know what's bound to happen next: the market will glut, and innovation will make way for imitation. But first, Dälek returns to the scene, fresh off collaborations with Faust, Techno Animal and Kid606, with a sophomore album inventive enough to extend avant-garde hip-hop's stay in the limelight for, at the very least, a few more weeks.
So what is it that makes Dälek - alongside producer Oktopus, and turntablist/producer Still - stand out amongst a seeming onslaught of original, challenging hip-hop? Namely that their songs are set to moody musique concrète backdrops that sound like something out of a David Lynch nightmare. Yes, there are rhymes set to hand-drums and cowbells. Yes, the lyrical content would feel more at home in a lit hall than in some trash-ridden alley. Yes, there are times when Dälek opts to speak his vocals rather than rap them. And yes, he's more sensitive than your average bear. But what really separates Dälek from the rest isn't his rabid experimentation as much as the way he builds a bridge between the avant-garde and the traditional.
While his contemporaries experiment with slant-rhyme and abstract poetics, Dälek takes a comparatively standard lyrical approach, setting forcefully delivered rhymes to some of the strangest soundscapes that will ever be labeled 'hip-hop.' Pleas for understanding, cries of frustration, and even the occasional ray of hope weave in and out of music that owes more to 80s Western European industrial music a la Psychic TV and Nurse with Wound than it does to Grandmaster Flash or Public Enemy. From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2148-from-filthy-tongue-of-gods-and-griots/
