erasing clouds
 

Depth Affect, Hero Crisis

by dave heaton

Here Depth Affect at first seem to be playing instrumental hip-hop more conventional than on their last LP, Arche-Lymb. Then again, they bring the same deep sense of atmosphere, and incorporate melody as well. There’s nothing ordinary, for example, about “The Villain Stands”, a little piano melody within a zoo of animal noises. The mood is less out-in-the-country than the last LP, more in the streets. Groovier, if less sunny. Still, this music is subtle, airy, strange. There is drama in the air, enough to make the “crisis” of the title significant.

The feeling abounds that something important is happening, even when the sounds are pretty or the subject is explicitly light, like Subtitle’s rap on “Street Level”. He and the other MC present on a track, Awol One, take different approaches. The former raps straight-ahead, the latter gives a charming sad-sack mumble. The music for that track is lovesick and perfect; it wraps around Awol One but gets you to focus on his unusual rap-sing first and foremost.

At other times you can’t help but notice the strange mood first, like on the dub-like, metallic “Oyster Bunch”, sort of an intro to, and part of the same fabric as, the next track “Cotton Candy”. That song has a light R&B vocal that makes it as fluffy as the title, but also a more serious musical overtone. The apocalyptic finale “Base Camp Wolf” is dizzying, stunning. Actually Depth Affect’s control over mood is consistently awe-inspiring for the whole album. What they’re creating is experimental pop music within a universe that takes hip-hop to be an essential element, right there with earth, air and fire.

{www.autresdirections.net/inmusic}


this month's issue
archive
about erasing clouds
links
contact
     

Copyright (c) 2008 erasing clouds