UBIK MCDXCII
“Echoes of a Dead Planet”
(Cellar Tapes)




This is big news: “Echoes of a Dead Planet” is the post-Burial death hip hop mixtape you deserve. Ubik MCDXCII (or Ubik 1492) twists familiar sounds until they’re unrecognizable and sinister, warping the reality of recordings beyond the realm of easy categorization. And yeah, this looks like a death metal tape, but it’s not – it’s just so preoccupied with the spiral toward eventual termination that there’s no other real option for aesthetics, is there? You just go with it.

“Ubik” of course is a novel by Philip K. Dick, whose premise isn’t something I’ll delve into much (although rapid demise features prominently), and MCDXCII is the Roman numeral representation of 1492, the year our hero Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and gloriously discovered America. My 1980s elementary-school history education, folks! Gotta love it. But we all know (now, anyway) that even more disease and waste followed in his wake, so we’re back here to the combo: Ubik MCDXCII, time-warping death dealer, mirror holder to vile love child of Columbus’s legacy and modern technology. Take a good look, and try not to heave up your burrito or pass out on the sidewalk.

Dark, grimy, subterranean – the London maestro fulfills the rhythms of the alleys in horrific movement, echoing indeed our final throes before the bitter end.

Who wants to go out for ice cream?

Cellar Tapes


--Ryan