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We rarely get rap cassettes here at Cassette Gods so it was pretty hard to turn this down. Signor Benedick the MOOR is seething with youthful energy that transforms into his rapid fire rhythms. While this is the center point of the entire cassette, it also goes in a thousand radically different genre directions from hardcore to accapella to techno.
The MOORs stanzas, vocal tone and pronunciation reminds me of Chance the Rapper. It's a little whinny like the Parrot in ALADDIN. At first that was a turn off, but it ends up being clutch because otherwise this cassette could suffer from taking itself too seriously. Its cryptic typography decisions evoke something medieval or at least the graphic design of Al-Qaeda.
I appreciate Signor Benedick the Moor's experimentation. He is a true artist. However, true experimental artists have a tendency of having hit or miss records. Think of the movie directors Nicolas Winding Refn or Werner Herzog; two experimental film directors concerned with stretching the boundaries of their medium as opposed to simply settling for making something familiar and therefore, safe to produce. Refn makes a masterpiece like "Pusher III" or "Drive" and then pulls "Only God Forgives" out of his ass. Herzog is responsible for one of my favorite movies ever, "Aguirre, the Wrath of God", but also directed "Werner Herzog eats his Shoe", which isn't exactly a movie. The point is, when you take risks, sometimes those risks fail.
This Cassette's failures include, but are not limited to, an acapella beat box session that just ends up sounding off. It's because the beats sound too much like farting I think. It sounds like this, for real.
But other songs are really good on this. And there's more hits than misses. More Swooshes than air balls, including a four track bedroom drum/bass/guitar/xylophone chill out. I think when the MOOR is just more straight up rap he really shines. The Cassette gets better as it goes along. Don't let the first song, which is the farty acapella song, turn you off.
BUY IT HERE:
http://deathbombarc.com/
http://deathbombarc.bigcartel.com/product/signor-benedick-the-moor-sbthemoor-cassette
-- Jack Turnbull
editor's note: the guy who runs this label (Brian Miller) was the original founder of Cassette Gods, so this the first time a Deathbomb Arc release has been reviewed on the blog. it's a cool label with a lot of history, check it out if you haven't...thanks for making this all come full circle.
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