Busdriver: Cosmic Cleavage (2004)

Like Tigger on Red Bull.

Download Unnecessary Thinking (mp3). Purchase this album: Amazon •

THE SCENE: In 2002 the supremely abstracted emcee Busdriver released his critically acclaimed second disc Temporary Forever, a sonic snapshot of his madcap visions and theatrical flow. Trading the standard boom-bap for jazz licks he returned in 2004 with the dada-esque European-only Cosmic Cleavage.

You know that kid in first grade who wasn't supposed to have sugar because it made him hyper?If that kid was a rapper, this is the album he would have made. Busdriver approaches the mic as if every rhyme could be his last, so he raps at breakneck speeds, croons at different pitches and frequently gasps for oxygen, usually all within the same phrase. And with his gift to free associate without an internal censor, his raps ricochet from one subject to the next like a room filled with hundreds of tiny active Spongebob superballs, a thunderous multicolored non-stop shower of energy.

The brilliance of Cosmic Cleavage is the appending of his cartoonish raps to the type of jazz that was actually used in cartoons, circa 1940. The screeching and sleazy horns of the title song evokes wolves in zoot suits brandishing oversized tommy guns down at the speakeasy. Busdriver's rubbery cadence on "Kev's Blistering Computer Tan" mimics Popeye's broken down jalopy, valiantly failing to move its mismatched tires before crashing into a rusty, dust-pooting heap.

Cosmic Cleavage is a concept album on mating and dating. "Nagging Nimbus " touches on divorce, his trumpet-like voice nearly blending in with the horn section. He's surrounded by 300 rpm rubber ducks in the girl-focused "Beauty Supply And Demand", and he works up some unique macking in the demented tango that is "Unnecessary Thinking".

Constantly changing voices he becomes the ringmaster and tightrope walker of his own animated circus cabaret during "She-Hulk Dehorning The Illusionist". Can he finish his rap before he runs out of air? Only on the Soul Coughing sound-alike "Pool Drowning" does he relax his one man Muppet Show vocal acrobatics, but it's merely the eye of his clownish hurricane.

THE FALLOUT: Much like Ren & Stimpy cartoons, Busdriver is an specialized taste, and the tastemakers who flocked to Temporary Forever dropped the increasingly oddball Cosmic Cleavage like the proverbial 16-ton weight. He bounced back the following year with the easier-to-swallow Fear of a Black Tangent.

Cosmic Cleavage is available from Amazon & , and you can sample tracks here:



Unhinged and unmedicated, Cosmic Cleavage rolls you inside the many cerebral folds of Busdriver's cortex, and shows you what he's made from.

See you next Wednesday.

NEXT WEEK: Meet Dug (sic).

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Post-Election Special! (2008)

It was twenty years ago today...

THE SCENE: I'm in shock. The happy, goosepimply kind of shock, like finding cash in a forgotten pair of pants. A LOT of cash.

The last time I felt this dizzying state of crumbling racial intolerance was in 1988. I was in an all-Black rock band at the time, which by definition meant our band were in it for the love, because there were no successful mainstream Black rock bands. Ever. Fishbone was the only group that was currently on major label, and outside of the modern rock ghetto they never made an impact equal to their talent.

And then came Living Colour. An all-Black rock band on Epic Records? That was Michael Jackson's label! I bought their CD, Vivid, on sale for $8.99 from The Wherehouse and was blown away with how great it was. Pop songs with clever social commentary and non-stop metal riffs with hints of jazz, African highlife, and hip-hop. In short, an unabashedly rock album, and one that wasn't selling.

I saw them perform at the Berkeley Square later that year, in front of 85 mostly Black college students - and not even close to a sellout. But they put on one of the most energetic, musical and transcendental concerts I've ever witnessed. Every word, every note hit the audience like an Level 5 hurricane. They gave hope to all Black rock musicians that you could at least rise to a college-radio level of acceptance.

And then MTV started playing "Cult of Personality".

Featuring speech extracts from Malcolm X and John Kennedy, the rifftastic song climbed into the Billboard Top 20, pushing Vivid into the Top 10. Seemingly overnight four intelligent brothers had shattered the Black rock ceiling, sliding through the gauntlet of xenophobia and pain and indifference into a freaking double platinum album. They wrote rock songs about the Black experience and sold them non-Black audience all over America, all over the world! I saw them again during this ascension, at a sold-out concert complete with white rocker chicks in stilettos and beefy rockers dudes in trucker hats.

Without precedent, Living Colour had become cooler than racism. For my band, the nationwide acceptance of Living Colour challenged how high we allowed ourselves to dream.

After watching our country vote in a Black president, I think America believes the concepts of hope and change are also cooler than racism. Finally.

How high can you dream now?

See you next Wednesday.

NEXT WEEK: Back the usual reviews!

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Georgia Anne Muldrow: Olesi: Fragments of an Earth (2006)

Fresher than a gumbo popsicle.

Download New Orleans (mp3). Purchase this album: Amazon •

THE SCENE: In spite of the nearly infinite song possibilities of both jazz and hiphop, I find jazz-hop to be universally underwhelming. (Except for this one, but you knew that already.) Usually one genre is sprinkled on top of the other like salt on a bagel, resulting in either jazz songs with with b-level raps or hiphop songs with acoustic bass loops. Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" is one of the few classics of both genres, and even that track is rap-free.

But vocalist and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow took a completely different angle, puréeing the surrealistic essences of both free jazz and hiphop beat chopping, whipping up the freaky soufflé into her debut album Olesi: Fragments of an Earth.

If The RZA remixed Jill Scott but left the tracks in the oven to melt, that's but a morsel of this albums' sound. Muldrow's jazz-scented vocals are layered frosting-thick but it's her plate of rhythms that's the real standout. Every song has a woozy bottom of micro-beats that ripple up like Ovaltine chunks, rendering the standard 4/4 beat undanceable and unrecognizable, yet totally fascinating.

Sandwiched between these slices are a buffet of musical styles, all of which get blended and stewed. The hemp-filled "Radio WNK" rolls in some reggae, its drums sounding like groceries dropped to the floor. The funk reduction "Birds" percolates on chocolatey bass pops and tin can hits. "Melanin" seasons an electronica soup with some fierce jazz scatting.

Muldrow reaches an apex of sonic collage with her unique social report "New Orleans". With it's first lines ("Murderer...Humans left alone to die") it's a devastating menu of marching snares, pianos smears, and anger. You can smell the fear and confusion of watching a town sink under the flood waters, and the taste the rage of indifferent government support.

Her only nod to mainstream music is with song length, as nearly every track is a bite-sized two minutes. Just long enough to get some radio spins. Er, not.

THE FALLOUT: Reviews were decidedly mixed: critics who appreciated dope-fiend beats (like hiphop writers) tended to be kinder than one who didn't (like indie rock writers). Sales were minimal. Although she's released some collaborative material since, she has yet to release a follow-up album.

Olesi: Fragments of an Earth is available worldwide from Amazon & , and you can sample tracks here:







A skillet full of spices, sauces and steam, Olesi: Fragments of an Earth is a full-course meal for the challenging palate.

See you next Wednesday.

NEXT WEEK: Mr. Busdriver's Wild Ride.

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Linda Perry: In Flight (1996)

Between Blonde and Pink.

Download Fruitloop Daydream (mp3). Purchase this album: Amazon •

THE SCENE: In 1995, rock band 4 Non Blondes had sold 6 million copies of their debut album Bigger, Better, Faster, More!, mostly on the strength of their unrestrained hit single "What's Up?" . But lead vocalist and songwriter Linda Perry couldn't stand singing it anymore, nor could she deal with Interscope Records' constant pressure to produce another "What's Up?", as that song didn't represent her current musical identity. So she quit the band to create a confessional song cycle that was a complete about-face from her last recording, resulting in the austere and elegant In Flight.

Where the brash energy of Bigger, Better, sounds like it was recorded during the half-time show of a bullfight, In Flight emotes the quiet stark beauty of a votive candle's flickering shadow. It slowly but confidently tells you its fears and mistakes with the deliberate stillness of a truth-telling session.

Perry's massive voice is still the sun by which all instrumentation orbits around, but she's learned to tailor its heat to the tone of the track. It moans over the shadowy desert of "In My Dreams", and drones along the decaying essence of "Life in a Bottle":

Stoned and demented

Walking through the walls

When I banged my head I slowly fell

Sad but delighted

Swimming in my well

I guess I'm going straight to Hell

The understated production evokes a ever-constant dream state, where the songs feel both weightless and heavy. The faerie garden of "Taken" is dappled with dew-glistened violin, and the swirly ascension of "In Flight" is grounded by a Stevie Wonder-esque gospel ballast. (So I flew unto a tree/ Gather inspiration/ Happy to meet/ All the other birds).

Not that ALL the songs are so serious; Perry does eke out a marvelously tap-danceable tinkly reminiscence of her childhood called "Fruitloop Daydream" that really should have been a single:

This ain't no walk in the park

But I call it my home

And you're all invited

Waking up in the dark

Knowing I'm not alone

It's all so familiar

The drag queens

The speed freaks

All the homo boys they touch me baby

Tainted love

The park on a Sunday afternoon

Ah, childhood.

THE FALLOUT: Interscope Records was unhappy with Perry leaving the gravy train of 4 Non-Blondes only to replace it with odes to queer love and underage drug use, so they released In Flight with no promotion. It sold a piddly 18,000 copies and was promptly deleted, leading to her 1999 release from Interscope. This was the last the public heard from her until 2001, when scowly meta-wigger Pink demanded she work with Perry, resulting in her co-writing and producing Pink's 5-million selling M!ssunderstood. In 2005, after contributing to Interscope artist Gwen Stefani's triple platinum album Love. Angel. Music. Baby., Interscope gave Perry the album masters to In Flight as a token of appreciation.

I'll say that again: Interscope, a label known for combatively managing its bottom line against the wishes of its artists, gave its own property away to an artist because they felt it was the right thing to do. FOR FREE.

In Flight is once again available worldwide from Amazon & (with a new cover), and you can sample tracks here:



In Flight is the diary of the only Brazilian-Portuguese-American dyke rock star, and how she made her specific traumas universal.

See you next Wednesday.

NEXT WEEK: The puzzle of Georgia Anne Muldrow.

Read more and hear tracks!