The Top Five anticon. Albums You Need To Hear
The author of 'Catch Us Before We Fall Off' shares his seminal picks. +reviews of Fetty P Franklin; Rich Jones
Joseph Rathgeber is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow and founder of Caltrops Press. He is the author of the newly published Catch Us Before We Fall Off: a [ch]oral history of anticon, a two-volume set of books (Vol. 1 + Vol. 2) covering the underground record label from its late 1990s origins through the year 2005. Featuring interviews with the founders, affiliated artists, and other figures in their orbit, this lengthy exploration of one of hip-hop's most notable subcultural phenomena is a bonafide labor of love.
Below, Rathgeber shares his thoughts on five definitive album selections from the anticon. universe, including some released on other labels, that you ought to hear.
Deep Puddle Dynamics, The Taste Of Rain... Why Kneel? [1999]
Must hear track(s): "The Candle," "I Am Hip Hop (Move the Crowd)"
It emerges from disparate geographic outposts; you've got Sole and Alias from Maine, Doseone from Cincinnati, Jel from Chicago. They all convene with Slug in Minneapolis, deconstructing their respective isolations in community with each other, in contrast to what they see in the polluted mainstream. In 1998, when the first eight songs were initially recorded, you didn't have people coming from different parts of the country to meet in a designated location and record together. Now, of course, we do that all the time digitally.
What these very young artists produced is notable because they came up with a set of rules of constraints. They've described it themselves as almost like a school project, where they wanted to evade the tropes in hip-hop at the time that they found tiresome. They avoided rap cliches, they didn't use cheap similes or punchlines. The songs ended up being highly conceptual, sort of this college dorm room philosophical bent to them. So it's very contrived–and that might turn some people off–but they are also ambitious and deeply sincere with what they're doing. The production is still some of the most impressive of the era, based off the fundamentals of drum breaks, chopped drums, and great loops.
They create this over the course of one week in 1998 in June, and it's deemed too strange, not at all marketable. So they take these first eight songs and they dub them to tape. They start disseminating them through friends and the tape trading channels that have been established by that point, and it starts to really create a buzz. It finds its way onto file sharing networks like Napster. Then they gather a year later in 1999 to record four more songs. They've got this album that they don't really know what to do with, so that really leads to anticon. as a label coming to fruition.
Them, Them [2000]
Must hear track(s): "Grass Skirt & Fruit Hat," "It's Them," Revenge Of The Fern"
What's very interesting about the anticon. story is the network of these individual artists coming together, following different paths at different times, and they all eventually Voltron together. So there's this Cincinnati cadre of anticon., and at the center of it all in Cincinnati is Mr. Dibbs of the 1200 Hobos. Dibbs is responsible for bringing so many of these guys together, just as Kevin Beacham in Chicago is responsible as well. Jel becomes sort of an apprentice to Kevin Beacham, in terms of being a radio DJ and also learning and mastering the SP-1200. Jel goes down with Kevin Beacham to Cincinnati where he meets Mr. Dibbs. Mr. Dibbs and Jel do the Presage record [1998's Outer Perimeter], and through that, Dose connects with Jel.
Them becomes what I think one of the most unique records in hip-hop history because Dose has abandoned rhyme completely at this point. His very sinuous style ingests Lyrics Born from Latyrx; it's part Dr. Octagon, part Saafir. But it creates something wholly his own. Dos goes into this what I call this schizo style, which is emboldened by Jel's drum patterns. He's doing things with the SP-1200 in 1998 that make the legions of SP-404 users today look like toys, like the graffiti term. Both these guys, individually and then together, are just trying to push the envelope as far as they can.
Buck 65, Vertex [1997]
Must hear track(s): "Bachelor Of Science," "The Centaur," "Sleep Apnoea"
It really is the standard by which I think all anticon. releases are measured after they hear it. Dibbs, Dose, Nosdam, all the guys have nothing but high praise for it. He was essentially trying to model the structure of this project on Tape Kingz mixtapes, which you would never really consider since Buck comes from Halifax, Nova Scotia. How does he even get a Tape Kingz cassette? There were conduits that were getting them up there, and he would take trips as well down to New York City and make these purchases himself. So this mixtape format, coupled with the dark and mysterious mood, make for really a singular work of art.
Buck was often the target of naysayers because of his voice, that he himself has referred to as that of a brat or a twerp. But the irony here is that he remains one of hip-hop's most uncompromising traditionalists. If you could look past what might sound like an unorthodox voice, he's really doing things in the most foundational way. His lyrics are fastidiously crafted. He's got this technique that I analyzed in the book, which I think he calls it the "hide the rhyme" technique, which I think is a real innovation, where the rhyme does not actually fall at the end of the bar. It's like a beat earlier, and so it doesn't even sound like he's rhyming.
As for the creation of Vertex, the setting in the atmosphere in which it was created, he recorded it in a 48-hour period with no sleep. That made it into the lore over the years, but there's a lot more that explains the mood and the mystique around the project. I think so many of the anticon. guys heard a familiar format, but with a very strange application of style and honesty that appealed to them. For all their pretensions and antagonism and sarcasm, of which there was a lot, they prized honesty.
Boom Bip & Doseone, Circle [2000]
Must hear track(s): "The Birdwatcher," "The Birdcatcher's Return," "The Birdcatcher's Oath"
Circle was released on Mush Records, which is an interesting subplot to the anticon. story. Dose meets Robert Curcio, this chemical engineer who's probably 15 years their senior, and he's interested in starting a rap label. He's coming from a different scene, more downtempo type of shit. Dose essentially functions as the A&R for Mush. He brings in all his friends that aren't on anticon., Labtekwon from Baltimore, Radioinactive from The Shape Shifters. He gets Aesop Rock to release Float, his first official album. And then every anticon. member basically works with Mush as well and releases a record–some better than others. Sole accuses Curcio repeatedly of poaching his contacts, which Sole took great pride in. Sole really is this brilliant business mind; he's been gathering these contacts since he was a teenager. Now this guy comes along and wants all that and gets his hands on it. But then Mush releases cLOUDEAD, which becomes the biggest album released by anybody in this universe.
Boom Bip is sort of unheralded, even within the Cincinnati scene, but he was a crucial figure there. He helped get Scribble Jam off the ground, had a radio show on the same station that Mr. Dibbs did, and weekly DJ gigs at this venue Ripley's. Him and Dose meet in an English class at the University of Cincinnati. Dose is immediately recognized for his full camo fatigues, and Boom Bip gravitates towards him as a similarly yet differently alternative guy. They make Circle in Robert Curcio's studio in the summer of 1999, right before Dose goes out to the Bay to join the other anticon. guys.
The production is way more polished, all over the map genre-wise, which allows Dose as a vocalist to really cut loose. On this project, he's all over the place. There's whispers, there's the relentless rap style, there's that sinuous singing, there's just an endless variety. A lot of Circle sounds almost like a precursor to what he'd start to do with the band Subtle later. Lyrically, poetically, he's going full oedipal; there's all sorts of interesting childhood musings happening. It's a really captivating listen from beginning to end and cohesive despite those genre diversions.
Object Beings, s/t [2001]
Must hear track: "Theatre Of Nature"
Object Beings is this one-off collaboration of The Pedestrian, Dose, Yoni Wolf–then known as Why?–and the producer Emynd. It's made in a similar spirit as Deep Puddle, but somehow manages to be more conceptual. That was initiated by Pedestrian's interest in Dadaism, which he cultivated by crashing university libraries at schools he did not attend. He's this autodidact, the most learned of the anticon. collective. He saw them as an avant-garde movement in the tradition of the Good Life and Project Blowed, which for him was the best of the best. Myka 9 nine is the paragon, the rapper par excellence; that's his God.
Object Beings is very silly. It invokes cannibalistic swans and Salvador Dali. They put out a seven-inch with two songs with this small label Weapon-Shaped, and then they put a short album, essentially an EP. It was released in a handmade fashion, burnt CD-R that was sold on tour, which I was lucky enough to get a copy of on September 9th, 2001 at Brownies, an anticon. showcase which I was lucky enough to be in attendance for.
A lot of the best anticon. work can be found in the cracks and the creases, and this is one such case. Worth mentioning is this project did not meet Pedestrian's own standards. He's basically disowned any work he's ever recorded. I talk about that in the chapter on him. When he releases a 12-inch from his album [2005's UnIndian Songs: Vol. I], it comes with a little broadside. He signs it at the end saying, "I hereby disown all this music that I've recorded in the past."
Purchase Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Catch Us Before We Fall Off at Amazon.
Fetty P Franklin & Bandplay, The Frank Play
Among the coterie of producers who soundtracked Young Dolph's vociferously executed bars during his lifetime, Bandplay contends for the top spot in that auspicious category. Within and beyond Paper Route EMPIRE, the Nashville-hailing beatmaker continues to be a leading figure in Southern rap at large, a fact made ever more apparent by this collaboration with Fetty P Franklin. Though the pair appeared earlier this year on the hustle-oriented Charlotte rapper's BET THE BANK ON FRANK, they truly cement their creative partnership on this ten-track outing. (The deluxe edition includes an additional six.) Bandplay's penchant for deep bass and trap-informed rhythm patterns forms a sort of sonic cocoon around Fetty, who crafts somewhat idiosyncratic but never insincere lyrics on "POTATO" and "GOT EM HATIN." He mixes brash brick flips with luxe street flexes on "ALL I KNOW" and the moderately funkier "TRIDENT," the latter turning shit talk into metaphorical gold. A late highlight, thick-as-thieves screed "THE MOB" contains the project's most potent punchline in I can show you how to cut that white girl like Charles Manson. Whoa...
Rich Jones & steel tipped dove, The Supplier
When MF DOOM rapped, living off borrowed time / the clock ticks faster, Rich Jones definitely felt that shit. And as he concludes his self-imposed Speedrunner’s Suite trilogy with the steel tipped dove co-headliner The Supplier, the Chicago emcee seems intent–hellbent, even–on making the most of the sand left in his hourglass. Emotionality and playfulness, while arguably perceived as paradox, have often proved Jones' signature moves, embodied in the coping mechanisms recounting on the oddly upbeat "Mull" and the existential food fight at the trembling heart of the clamorous "Daggers." On the warm and jazzy "My Favorite Face," he sings his way towards a sense of closure with the most vulnerable one in the bunch.Understandable given the album's NYC origins, the duo call upon the Mid-Atlantic underground for support, leading to frank features by PremRock and Zilla Rocca on "Henny For Your Thoughts" and Fatboi Sharif on "Oh Wowwww."
Three new tracks to snack on...
Big Moochie Grape & Zaytoven, "She Love Me"
ANKHLEJOHN & Bane Capital, "NINEFIFTY"
Saynave, "Damn Homie"