Fresh Releases By Five Deez & Atom TM & Pink Elln...

Artist: Five Deez
Album: Kommunicator
Label: Rapster
Release: February 3

"Let The People Know" mp3

Since 1974, when jazz astronaut Sun Ra declared, "Space is the place," a small but courageous group of musicians — those behind the Dr. Octagon and Deltron aliases included — have trekked through the outer rings of future-bop experimentation. Following in those buoyant, cosmic footsteps come Cincinnati's Five Deez, a quartet of gifted producers and MCs led by the inimitable Fat Jon (the Ample Soul Physician). Rather than float weightlessly in the nebulous void of commercial radio, Five Deez have managed to establish a weigh station somewhere between Euro-hop fringe and reliable stateside groove — one where thick beats and memorable hooks are broken down and reconfigured with an admirable degree of dexterity. What results is an incomparable blend of Mo' Wax-era production, mid-Atlantic hip-house boogie, and entire atmospheres of stylized ambience. Drop the backpack and gas up the jetpack, because Kommunicator avoids the clichés of underground hip-hop with a vision fixed firmly on the firmament. Review By earplug



Artist: Atom TM & Pink Elln
Album: Live Vol. 2 & 3
Label: Logistic
Release: February 27

As if Uwe Schmidt — aka Atom Heart, Atom TM, Señor Coconut, and perhaps a hundred other aliases — weren't prolific enough already, here come two live recordings from his appearances alongside longtime accomplice Pink Elln (Tobias Freund, a member of NSI and Sieg Über Die Sonne). Recorded in Valparaiso, Chile and Zürich, Switzerland, these are hardly simple collectors' fare; rather, they're essential documents for anyone interested in acid evolution. Performed on laptops and 808, the two tracks — each around a half-hour long — twine together machine-like, real-time improv with sampling and digitally assisted construction. The end product is a relay race of ever-unspooling bass lines that turns back time with Superman speed, all while pushing the party further forward, into the eternally pulsing now. It's funky, feverish, and absolutely acid-fab. Review By earplug