|
 |
MH-230 cLOUDDEAD - Ten  Ten finds cLOUDDEAD building on all of the elements that defined their debut: razor sharp vocal interplay, quirky found sound samples, ambient drone dreamscapes, lyrics that walk the line between observational and confessional, and a fair share of nosdam drums slowed to a growl. Doseone and why? never take the cheap way out. Their lyrics may range from blurry and buried to sharp and surfaced, but each and every line has meaning. The music and production are collaborative, featuring Doseone's knack for bottling emotion, why's self-taught multi-instrumentalist efforts, and odd nosdam's flair for borrowed genius. Individually, Doseone, why? and odd nosdam are as prolific and fearless as anyone in today's new music scene, but together as cLOUDDEAD they are able to create music that captures all of the promise of their individual talents in an unequaled sound. |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reviews Summary |
| All must hail - BBC / A brilliant swan song - CMJ / Genuinely Original - Uncut / Catchy and Sublime - Under The Radar / Unquestionably, cLOUDDEAD have arrived - Pitchfork / It's golden. - Magnet / Original and eccentric - Alarm / Its merits are aplenty and deep - Flyer / Strident and sophisticated - Grooves / Uniquely promising and satisfying - Stylus |
| cLOUDDEAD's self-titled 2001 debut launched a thousand internet debates over its merits and whether it's even hip-hop. My response: its merits are aplenty and deep, and it is hip-hop - albeit a new, strange mutant strain of the genre. On cLOUDDEAD, Doseone and why? whined cryptic symbolism through their noses while odd nosdam stitched low-fi ambient/space-rock/aquatic trip-hop soundscapes. The album, drained hip-hop of its machismo and replaced it with doubt-strewn introspection and diaristic surrealism. Students will soon be studying it like Ezra Pound cantos. By contrast, Ten is more tightly structured, but it retains the debut's bedroom recording quality and Robitussin logic. cLOUDDEAD have improved their melodic chops, often sounding like an Elephant 6 band exploring psyche pop's murkiest realms. Rickety, leaden funk beats will keep heads nodding while the words'll keep 'em wondering. But is it hip-hop? why? once called cLOUDDEAD "electronic campfire music." Ten is high flames on the lone prairie, and it's a charmer. - Flyer |
