•
Rating: Speechless.
That is my first impression upon listening to Dälek's second album, Absence. I knew nothing about the trio in question, except that they belonged to the Ipecac family and their very original approach to rap. That's all, nothing more. Oh yes, names and roles in the project in question (Dälek: MC and producer; Oktopus: producer; Still: DJ and turntablist). That being said, I listen to Absence.
Ten tracks, fifty-seven minutes of music or a little more, dark and haunting cover. Yes, yes, this is a great record, I tell myself. "Distorted Prose" starts, and the tight metrics of the resident MC shine in total silence like flashes in the dark. The boy knows his stuff, quite talented, undoubtedly raised on bread and freestyle. Suddenly, chaos. The non-music of Dälek comes into play. Dirty and obsessive drums accompany our MC's rhymed invectives, tons of industrial noises, devastating feedback and frenetic scratches almost completely bury them, but never crush them, always maintaining balance. Each element respects and integrates the other, nothing is placed at random, almost as if to establish a sort of "order of chaos." "A Beast Caged" and "Ever Somber" are among the album's undeniable peaks, without any doubt. It is here more than elsewhere that the non-style of our artists is synthesized, post-modern shoegazers grappling with beats & rhymes. Incredible. The heavy rhythms of "Opiate The Masses" worthily conclude an hour of nightmare, a hallucinated and distressing journey into the underground that finally brings us back to the light, after wallowing for kilometers in putrid waters, frightened to death only by ourselves and our fears.
Yes, as you might have guessed, Absence shocked me quite a bit, the comparison with The Cold Vein is totally valid: two epoch-making and extreme records that set new standards and styles. Both a hope for the future of rap and music. However, Dälek pushes even further. Their sound is pure deconstruction, conceptually closer to the experimentation of cLOUDDEAD, other great antagonists of rap. A true murder translated into music, the extermination of rap and its reincarnation in a new guise. A masterpiece, a new milestone, a paradoxical and reassuring way out for a genre that seemed to be drawing only from clichéd and trite stereotypes. And, not least, a triumphant entry into the Third Millennium, the definitive advent of that future that scares us, but which, all things considered, is already among us.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Distorted Prose (06:00)
Broke stride as last of men realized their deep deceit.
This troubling advance of half-assed crews crowd these streets.
Never mind of who I am, son, just listen when I speak
Broken paragraphs hold wrath of a hundred million deep.
Bleak circumstance led masses to only want to dance
A bastard child of Reaganomics posed in a B-Boy stance
Make our leaders play minstrel, Left with none to lead our people.
How the fuck am I gonna shake your hand, when we never been seen as equals?
Deemed evil by those housed in church steeples.
False prophets read backwards from broken tablets to the feeble,
I seen you!
Regurgitate their lies.
I'll bide my time with scrolls and ancient's wine.
Heady brew left mark on this hazy scribe.
If stars align I suppose even the blind will see,
How they stole our last voice, corrupted culture into industry.
Few minutes remain,
A tame soul wanders wild when it dreams.
Mine are filled with ill visions of soot and dope fiends.
These slit wrists won't rest till I spill these last drops.
Tarnished skin only sin when I awoke on sidewalk.
Seen your movements through peripheral
Remain same individual.
When a man's viewed as criminal to act animal is logical.
Audible tones honed to hold substance
Form sentence
Poor reluctant poet, speak prose
Refuse to beg repentance
Reluctant poet speak prose
Incite our peoples
We got raked through those coals
Once the truth was divulged.
Conscience calls thoughts subliminal
Actions all cyclical
Deplorable descendants of men depressed clinical.
Answers seem visible when visionless
Useless souls fold under pressure like hands pray to false Jesus.
Inadequate adversaries advance awkwardly.
Anger expressed outwardly
Causes ranks to break amongst these frail MC's.
Your fictional tales told with conviction.
Concise concepts once written enter bloodstream
since this inks been forbidden.
Distorted poet, speak prose
Incite our peoples
We got raked over coals
But the truth's still untold.
Meaning lost to these zealots
Prefer bullets to ballots
Watch the rich sip from chalice
As these eyes fill with malice
Peasant hands remain callous
as our days retain darkness
I swallow razor blades to keep my vocal cords sharpened.
Morbid mixture of mistrust and anger paints picture.
Perception now blurred words slurred to form scripture.
These sullen souls misinformed
Storm gates of stronghold
Strange fate that I chose
Morbid poet speak prose.
Tattered voices arose
Red Blood written on scroll
Escapes throat an ill flow
For my violence atoned.
Modest thoughts monotone
Infant MC's play grown
Found them hung in hallways
from cords on microphones
Loading comments slowly
