Deltron 3030
Deltron 3030
75 Ark
Dr. Octagon’s Dr. Octagonecologyst didn’t become the definitive alternative hip-hop album through years of inter-group chemistry – it was simply the sum of its parts. One of those parts, producer Dan “the Automator” Nakamura, attempts to recreate that futuristic abstractionist formula with Deltron 3030, the latest super-(dupa fly)-group under his surreal guidance.
Here, Del tha Funkee Homosapien’s vocal gymnastics rock unorthodox to wrap an extended metaphor around an Asimov-cum-Orwell dystopia where “art avenger” Deltron Zero is hunted in a New Earth replete with super-viruses, fascist dictators, global apartheid, and fiendish neo-corporations. Del utilizes every word and syllable in the sci-fi dictionary to create a new vocabulary as whacked as anything spit by Kool Keith, but with an insurgent direction that turns a wickedly entertaining story into scathing political commentary. In addition, his crystalline flow is pure liquid brilliance, tumbling syllable after syllable with not so much as softening an “r” or an “-ing.” And funky as hell, as noted when Del rhymes with the subtle dynamics of a Gene Krupa drum solo, slickly intoning, “Clap your ear to Soulsonic Mantronic phonics/Turn your brain to a omelet/I’ll hold a comet in bondage.”
If DJ Q-Bert’s gaudy turntable histrionics on Dr. Octagonecologyst is musically analogous to Eddie Van Halen, than Canadian cut-up Kid Koala (a.k.a. Skiznod the Boy Wonder) plays the role of a scratcher’s Robert Fripp, using quiet atmospheric twaddle that is as progressive as it is technical. Over Automator’s beats, an always aggressive thump accompanied by the most swooping orchestral lines and transporting electroacoustic buzzes of any hip hop producer ever, Del and Koala create the most vivid and clever future-rap album ever. And again, the sum of its space-age parts.
75 Ark, 77 Chambers St., 4th Floor, New York, NY 10007
