2001: A Space-Rock Odyssey
Space-rock, hip-hop's final frontier?
Bay Area-based oddballs Clouddead caused quite a stir when they landed circa 2001. Like Arthur C Clarke before them, they were nerds voyaging into the cosmic: Clouddead beatmaker Odd Nosdam drawing inspiration from space-rock acts like Stars of the Lid, Flying Saucer Attack, and Füxa. Forsaking the boom and the bap, Nosdam built atmospheric 'movements' shrouded in the gaseous fog of lo-fi, four-track tape hiss.
The shoddy quality of the recordings makes Clouddead's self-titled album —a compilation of 12 songs from a series of six 10" records— sound like it's swamped in a perpetual mist. Vocalists Doseone and Why? are not, therefore, spotlit at the front of the mix, but buried deep within the murk. Often, their spat-out syllables, fired out in nasally Jewish voices, are close to inaudible. And, of course, therein lies the charm.
Hip-hop, at its worst, is the most self-evident of genres; one long, unending narrative of 'my name is' and 'I'm here to.' Clouddead (whose name, I should note, was always stylized as cLOUDDEAD) dared to be bizarre, mysterious, and elusive. Not to mention not macho, not jiggy, and not trying to "keep it real;" the latter of which is, really, just a fascist kind of recidivism; a pledge to never grow or change.
Fittingly enough, this Clouddead record was crucified by guardians of hip-hop 'realness' upon its release. Instead, it founds its audience in the fringes of indie and deep in the experimental sect; those with adventurous ears finding much to love in its voyage into the innerspace.
The Cloud is Dead, the Fog Has Cleared
Befitting a band titularly beholden to cloudiness, there's a vague, amorphous quality to the songs on Clouddead. In their initial 10" guise, these weren't really songs, but sides; each record filled with six-minutes of stitched-together sound. Rather than single compositions, they're bits and pieces; the thread that holds each 'movement' together sometimes tangible/audible, other times otherwise invisible.
This works perfectly with the metafictional lyricism of Dose and Why?; who rock the mic like neurotic, self-aware poets playing free-associative games. From amidst the thick, gaseous productions, lines jump out at jarring random. They're usually bizarre, often hilarious.
Things like: "I did nothing today but walk a blind man to his bus stop"; "it's McDonald's versus a handful of dry sea-monkeys awaiting the wet sponge"; "the dead dog on the shoulder of 71/here's where the flies come in"; "God's daughter, built for speed, lives on the fourth floor/we're in the basement"; and "I taught myself to survive a four-storey fall/wearing a space suit and a dead Englishman's socks."
In the years since, Dose and Why? would toss out words via enough projects —Themselves, Subtle, Reaching Quiet, and, of course, Why?— that, in hindsight, Clouddead no longer seems like an alien proposition, but a familiar one; the foundation stone on which a whole sub-sub-genre of rap-ish indie experimentalism would be built. But, back in 2001, there was little to nothing around like this. And still, to this day, even to those familiar with the game, Clouddead does sound pretty strange.
Record Label: Mush
Release Date: May 1, 2001
