ID M THEFTABLE "id m + jay z" (mangdisc)

I was told when given this that a friend of id m's was sicklyillin and wanted there to be an id m theft able & jay-z concert. It unfortunately could not be arranged so mr. id m provided the next best thing - set up some studio time with jay and made a tape.

best rapper alive, what's up, I told you. turn the music up. woo.
I'm in my zone.

a good 45 minutes (plus) straight of
tiny cuts of jay-z acapella spliced together into quick sputtering rhythms, layered with shout-outs chopped short. everything stuttering and skipping in avalanche form, a few pebbles start it off and then it quickly gathers more, collecting all of jay's syllables and turning them into a crushing rumbling. unrelenting. like Steve Reich's Come Out, after a bit, the words that are recognizable lose their meaning and become pure sound - parts of the rhythm. and/but also, like David Mahler's Hearing Voices , the tiny chopped speech lets us hear every part of a single sound, minuscule moments, isolated, and dissected to their basic parts.
It is also impossible for me to not mention Wobbly's Wild Why , which this tape is most akin to. (This is not a bad thing! I listened to that album with reckless abandon for a good month... mind blowing, if you haven't heard it - please, find a copy right away!) though while Wobbly is throwing fire crackers at your feet from his BMX, id m is in the woods, melting mirrors with a flamethrower.
entrancing and completely consuming.

http://kraag.org/
http://kraag.org/mangdisc/

(and now that I am done writing this very first review of mine, upon putting in the links above, it seems like maybe this isn't an available release! well, keep an eye out all the same...)

RE S DUAL MANG "Book 1: An Obliterit No No" (Mangdisc)

I got this tape recently from Skot (aka Id M Theftable) when i was raiding his tape merch, didn't get any info from him, but from the liner notes of this tape we learn that this cassette is a collection of radio show (named Re S Dual Mang) excerpts from 2000-2005 aired on Portland, ME's WMPG. Evidently the show has been airing since 1997 but those first 3 years didn't make the cut for this release. Comes hand packaged and spraypainted, totally anonymous except for the insert, this tape looks kind of like a tape you'd find on the street. In a way it sounds like that. Well, depending on which street you lived.

The tape runs really seamlessly but is a massive collage of totally damaged mind scans from the Maine airwaves. It has a really playful nature that i appreciate, akin to the early Black Bean Placenta one sided 12"s that i heard years and years ago (which actually often featured Crank Sturgeon who is from Maine and has releases on the Mangdisc label). It's not afraid of overwhelming you with a wall of sound so long as a wall of sound include two guys battling it out with a nonsense rhythmic double monologue or a guy mimicking a talking toy, maybe a couple of real, unprank phone calls, one of a girl from the Midwest calling in her personal ad (she's just living in Maine for now, she's moving back, in case anyone out there is listening???). The cacophony continues with tons of clinking, toys, keyboard battles and marching songs fill out the absolute tornado torpedo that is this tape.

I remember being a kid and listening to all the Boston area college stations, WERS, WZBC, WMBR and feeling so excited by the world of unknown sound being revealed to me, Reggae, Punk, Hip Hop, College Rock, looking back i always thought i was so lucky to have that amount of exposure, I'm just glad my wide-eyed 10 year old self never made it up to Maine, (even though it wasn't on the air at the time) because i think i would have been forever disappointed by the offerings of Boston radio thereafter.

kraag.org