Land of a Thousand Scratches

I Can Can-Can

Mike Boo - "Oaksterdam Goo" (mp3)
(purchase here)

Ricci Rucker - "Do You See the Pattern?" (mp3)
(purchase here)

First New Year's resolution: stop playing this. Really. Since Saturday, I've already logged over 48 hours and become obsessed like a true goober. However, in its spirit, I'll hit you with a 1-2 post-yesterday's post. And what better way to wash away the trap talk your neighborhood hoodrat just learned? Get pretentious with the latest from Alpha Pup Records.

Mike Boo and Ricci Rucker are two DJs from the Yay with a pair of LPs that deserve consideration, especially now that that bloody "t'ism" word can be laid to rest. Now, before you get all Crabby McCrabenstein over an album's worth of crabs and flares, hear 'em out. Boo's Dunhill Drone Committee is tonally a logical progression from Endtroducing..., heavy in mood, thick'n dark like years-old resin, mixed and scratched all the way through. That last distinction can only be shared with two other albums (D-Styles' Phantazmagorea and Boo's own Scetchbook: An Introduction to Scratch Music), but Boo shows great adeptness towards composition, so it's not all vinyl hollerin'.

If that didn't give the neighbors the tick, then Rucker's "50-minute long song" should do the trick. A combination of scratch composition, live improvisation and interpretation and studio programming, Fuga screams of time, time, time. From time signatures to the time spent to even plan such an effort, the album is technically demanding. Because Rucker reconstructed and rearranged the parts of his 20+ collaborators, there is an inherently internal logic which makes it both difficult and fascinating to crack.

Now, ain't that an after-school special thought? Technique on Technics as the dope of the day?