DJ Spooky and the avant-garde go together like ham and cheese, so it’s usually no surprise to know what you’re getting on one of his albums. He’s worked with composers like Matt Shipp and John Zorn, covered Cage and Xenakis and did a multi-media installation piece at Lincoln Center recently where he re-mixed the film “Birth of a Nation,” and has worked on a myriad of other projects. So he’s a complicated man, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have fun. On his new album “Drums of Death,” he sort of goes back to his musical roots, and what I mean is that the album has beats. Ones you can actually dance to rather than sit and go “Damn, how’d he do that?”
With a small ensemble of all-stars backing him, Spooky for the most part mixes his ambient prowess with speed metal drumming demon, Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Fantômas fame who drops beats like megaton bombs! Make no mistake, the album has its avant-garde tendencies with intervals of craziness by these two but surprisingly together they collaborate really well, mixing speed metal, scratching and ambient background sounds that have both space-age rhythms and danceable mayhem. What DJ Spooky project would be complete without him pushing some boundaries anyway?
Add in Chuck D on vocals, Vernon Reid on guitar, and Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto, who both plays bass and guitar on some tracks as well as co-produced the album along with Spooky, and you have a strange stew of musical differences that create otherworldly sounds. There are even additional vocals by Newark, New Jersey’s own hip-hop artist Dälek and composer/vocalist Meredith Monk.
On the opening track, “Universal Time Signal,” Chuck D steals his own verses from Fear of a Black Planet’s “Brothers Gonna Work It Out,” as rock guitar pounds behind him and electronic beats help drive the song. Chuck himself sounds like he never lost a step since that original album was released. DJ Spooky as a producer wisely utilizes these artists talents throughout the whole album giving each one the time and space to really show what they can do. On “Assisted Suicide,” Meredith Monk sings a melody that has no words while Dälek raps. Together they play over Lombardo’s drumming that makes it both gives it a bounceable sound while rocking. Lombardo himself gets to show his chops on this album more than any other I’ve heard from him in a while. He plays hip-hop, speed-metal, even jazz showing just why he’s one of the best drummers ever. This album is a nice departure for Spooky as it’s solidly danceable to yet keeps with his forward-thinking sensibilities. If the avant-garde met hip-hop in a street fight while the world was counting down to self-destruction, this album would be the soundtrack and you would love it! |