The Mouse & The Mask

Producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse and rapper/villain MF Doom joined forces in 2005 to form the unstoppable hip-hop beast Danger Doom and pay homage to the Cartoon Network's late night absurdity of Adult Swim. A Hip-Hop oddity if there ever was one, this beat friendly and lyrically mesmerizing creation is a masterful answer to all that is popular Hip-Hop/rap these days. Does Kanye West give you unending douche chills? Tired of P-Diddy MTV reality shows? Does an endless use of Auto Tune voice pitch changing shit make you bang your head against the wall?

It is unquestionable that pop hip-hop is a wasteland of lowest common denominator marketing and mind numbingly repetitive sampling. But there are still shining points of creativity within the world of Hip-Hop, Danger Doom is the combination of two of those forces. Guest appearances by the likes of rap emissaries Ghostface, Talib Kweli, and Cee-Lo Green are met by Adult Swim personalities Brak, Harvey Birdman, Master Shake and the rest of ATHF, the cast of Sea Lab 2021 and more. The songs wander freely around cartoon inspired plot lines and animated landscapes. Sound surreal? It is.

I really need you to have this.

slap happy crappiness

Mike Patton Week : Thursday - Day 4

Mike Patton enlisted an impressive and vast range of collaborators for the debut Peeping Tom effort. Word is he exchanged song ideas with the prospective partners via song files online, each side independently altering and adding until the finished product was created. There were no jam sessions or free flowing brainstorming as a traditional band would. Patton took what would normally be viewed as an intimate process of creation and made it cold and impersonal. Replaced was the exchange and communication between creative forces, instead there is only the ultimate and indifferent truth that what was once yours has been morphed and altered into a new creature. "Instead of swapping spit...we were swapping files," Patton appropriately points out on his Ipecac label's website. The result is both surprisingly passionate and not surprisingly diverse from track to track. Artists such as Kool Keith, Odd Nosdam, Dan the Automater, Amon Tobin, Jel, Massive Attack, Bebel Gilberto, Kid Koala, Doesone, Dub Trio and Norah Jones each tweaked and shaped their tracks independent of Patton himself. The album ranges in styles from rock to lounge to funk to alt. hip-hop and to electro, but always there is a general pop friendliness throughout. It is easily the most accessible creation for Patton since his FNM days. This is not meant to be disparaging, there is a serious drought of decent and interesting pop talent these days and Mr. Patton is more than willing to fill yet another musical void. It's an album that is easily enjoyed and is a perfect record to spin, with its' plentiful alt hip-hop beats, at your next party. Unless you want everyone sitting on the couch watching t.v. or standing in the kitchen just staring at each other. Hey man, it's you party... what do I care.

SUCKER