Themselves: "You Ain't It"

Themselves: Crownsdown

Meet Adam “Doseone” Drucker and Jeff “Jel” Logan. Raised in completely different fashions — Drucker in hippie idealism in Idaho, and Logan in the city of Chicago — the two simultaneously developed a love of hip hop. When they met through a tape trade in 1998, and joined forces as hip-hop duo Themselves, it was the beginning of journey filled with triumphs, tragedy, experimentation, and perseverance. After a six-year hiatus, Themselves came back in 2009 with its most impressive album to date, Crownsdown.

In 1997, the members of Themselves helped to co-found Anticon Records, an artist-run hip-hop collective that early on was based out of Drucker’s adopted homes of Cincinnati, Ohio and Portland, Maine. Themselves released its debut album Them in 1999, which featured Drucker’s machine-gun-paced introspective rhymes (which had landed him victories in countless underground freestyle battles) and Logan’s fresh-beat machine and unique, ear-catching production.

Themselves and the Anticon cooperative stood with the elite of the late-’90s underground: artists like Atmosphere, J Rawls, and Aesop Rock. “Back then we considered ourselves the next Guru and Premier,” Drucker comments. That same year, Themselves and the Anticon collective uprooted themselves from the Midwest and relocated to Northern California. As Drucker and Logan moved into a house with nine people and got jobs at the Bay Area’s iconic Amoeba Records, everything about how they saw life and hip hop changed.

“Prior to moving west, I considered myself a rap elitist, meaning I only listened to rap,” Drucker explains. “When I lived in Cincinnati, I only knew rappers, not musicians. When Jel and I moved to Oakland in 1999, we started meeting a ton of musicians. Right away our perspective started to change. Then we hooked up with Dax, a keyboardist and coworker at Amoeba. He opened the door to a whole new world for Jel and I.”

The addition of keyboardist Dax Pierson signaled big changes for Themselves. “Things were shifting,” Drucker says. “Before Subtle, Dax was in [Themselves] playing our music. After a while, it was apparent that Dax was experiencing angst about playing music he didn’t help create. Also, the exposure to new genres and sounds made us want to journey deeper into music, but Jeff and I were fairly limited in what we could do. Jeff was just starting to do live beat-machine playing, and I had never really picked up an instrument, much less a keyboard. We formed Subtle to go back to the basics [with instruments].”

Subtle, a six-member indie-electro ensemble, proved to be about far more than just going back to the basics. Driven by innovative, instrumental electronic music, a massive infusion of Jack Kerouac / Bob Kaufman-inspired poetic prose, and telekinetic improvisation, Subtle became a phenomenon that crossed into indie-rock audiences as well.

After releasing several well-received singles, “Long Vein of the Law,” “F.K.O.,” and “The Mercury Craze,” the group attained street credibility, which gave it the opportunity to travel the world several times over. “Things that seemed unattainable in Themselves suddenly became within sight in Subtle,” Drucker notes.

Though Subtle was praised for being creative and original, it also was on the receiving end of criticism. “There was all this back talk,” Drucker says. “People and rappers alike were like, ‘What are these guys doing?’ and ‘Where’s Dose’s rhymes?’ But I was making what I had to make. There is no oath I took that binds me to a sequence of doing certain things, or paying a definite amount of dues. The more that people expressed their issues about what they felt were my issues, the more their angst became apparent to me.”

A tragic tour-van accident in 2005 left Dax Pierson paralyzed from the neck down. “Dax’s tragedy was a nightmare that none of us wanted to live,” Drucker says. “But luckily, with technology today, he’s able to live a meaningful life, and he continues to contribute to what we do musically.”

Armed with lessons learned from artistic growth, human tragedy, and everyday life, Drucker and Logan decided to pick up where they left off with Themselves. “We’ve always been a rap group,” Druker says. “And although some people out there forgot that, we never did.”

To signify the return, Themselves produced two releases. The first was the FreeHoudini mixtape, an album disguised as a mixtape available for free download and made “to be more boundless and to get the stupid shit out of our system — like playing the refrigerator.” The second album, Crownsdown, is “the record that we wanted to make when we made the Them record,” Drucker says.

“Crownsdown is our interpretation of a classic rap record, meaning that it has certain types of songs on it that all of the records we consider classic contain,” he continues. “There are ‘don’t fuck with my crew’ songs, ‘don’t fuck with me’ songs, ‘don’t fuck with what I’ve worked so hard on’ songs, love songs. We tried to build this record from an architect’s perspective.”

From the first moment of the first track to the end of the last, Themselves fans and newcomers alike will be knocked back by the intensity, clarity, and catchiness of Crownsdown. It is a record full of thick, gritty beats, 100-MPH rhymes, and — perhaps most importantly — focus. “In Subtle and before, I was rhyming about death and really [a] broad scope [of] stuff that were more of inner monologues. In Crownsdown, I’ve really zoomed in on specific topics, which allowed the rhymes to come together and sound cleaner instead of forced or even contrived.”

With one listen to Crownsdown, released in late 2009, it seems that the six-year hiatus paid off. Logan and Drucker now have skills in hand to both reinvent the genre they helped define and to make an impression on the music world as a whole. “We’d like to think that this record will change things, make a statement,” Drucker says. “But who knows? All I know is that we play a style of live, improvised hip hop that doesn’t seem to exist yet.”

Heavy Trash: Midnight Soul Serenade (Fat Possum)

As Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray unleash their third disc of old-school roots rock and rockabilly as Heavy Trash, the duo collaborates with a bona fide cast of contributors to create some of its finest tunes on a disc that expands its repertoire.

Accompanying organ is spread throughout Midnight Soul Serenade, an album that also contains splashes of piano on "Gee, I Really Love You," vocal gentleness and female vocal backings on "Good Man," vocal eccentricities on "Bumble Bee," Southwestern guitar and baritone harmonies on "Pimento," and low tones and acid flair on "The Pill," a tune evocative of Twin Peaks that tells its own psychedelic tale.

Top-end players Simon Chardiet, Sam Baker, Powersolo, Mickey Finn, Daniel Collas, and Those Darlins lend their good graces. If this kind of music piques your interest, pick this up.

Themselves: CrownsDown (Anticon)

After six years of silence (spent on countless other projects, many with each other), no-nonsense rap duo Themselves — Adam "Doseone" Drucker and Jeffrey "Jel" Logan — returned with a free "mixtape" earlier this year. Now the two have released their proper third album, CrownsDown, a sample-driven album that is both experimental and traditional.

The gritty, nasally intonation and rapid-fire delivery of Jel are slathered up and down the disc, which is based on hip-hop and dance beats and patchwork samples. Subtle founder Dax Pierson and 13 & God bandmates Jordan Dalrymple and Markus Acher make cameos.

Minamo: Kuroi Kawa: Black River (Tzadik)

Avant-violinist extraordinaire Carla Kihlstedt (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, 2 Foot Yard, The Book of Knots) and prolific classical pianist Satoko Fujii (Satoko Fujii Orchestra) spend much of their time on the outskirts of musical convention, combining their desired genres in whichever ways that they see fit.

Here the two create two worlds on two discs: one of dutifully recorded compositions and one of live, stream-of-conscious improvisations. Fans of experimental chamber music should dig this.

Honorable mentions:

Dave Douglas: A Single Sky (Greenleaf)
Jesu: Opiate Sun (Caldo Verde)
Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things: About Us (482 Music)
Jessica Pavone: Songs of Synastry & Solitude (Tzadik)
Pyramids with Nadja: s/t (Hydra Head)
Rupa & The April Fishes: Este Mundo (Cumbancha)
The Squirrel Nut Zippers: Lost at Sea
John Zorn: Femina (Tzadik)

Tortoise

Issuing its first full-length album of new material in five years, the incomparable instrumental quintet known as Tortoise makes a marked shift from its previous two albums.

Those predecessors, Standards and It's All Around You, ushered in a new era of melodic beauty that integrated synthesizers, vibraphones/marimbas, samples, and jazz guitarist Jeff Parker into the band's mixture of indie rock, post-rock, and dub.

Beacons of Ancestorship packs up the mallets to emphasize the synths, but the album's sonic palette is the most diverse of any Tortoise release.  Metamorphosing grooves lead to moments of exotic strings, fuzz bass, noodling guitar hammer-ons, and snare-heavy cadences.  Even a touch of spaghetti Western directs "The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One."

It may take a few listens, but Tortoise fans are sure to love this one.

Serengeti & Polyphonic: Terradactyl (Anticon)

Creative multi-genre rapper Serengeti has long held esteem in Chicago indie hip-hop community, where he has frequently crossed streams with producer Polyphonic.

On Terradactyl, the duo's second album and first for Anticon, unorthodox rhymes land alongside bass synth, acoustic guitar, cello, digitized bleeps, and restrained IDM sounds.  Special guests Adam "Doseone" Drucker, Buck 65, and Renee-Louise Carafice make appreciated vocal cameos, but 'Geti has skills that need no augmentation.

The duo's live instruments and unusual sound may alienate closed-minded listeners.  Nevertheless, with the national influence and distribution of Anticon, Terradactyl should announce Serengeti & Polyphonic as an inspirational new voice in indie rap.

The Mars Volta: Octahedron (Warner Bros.)

Maintaining his rabid album-a-year pace (in addition to his countless other projects), tireless guitarist Omar Rodriguez Lopez puts another Mars Volta disc under his belt with this move to Warner.

In contrast to last year's Bedlam in Goliath, Octahedron is a rather subdued affair, offering poppier passages, verse-chorus-verse balladry, and softer sounds from singer Cedric Bixler Zavala.  The album has a decidedly less progressive feel, but alien-esque effects and nimble guitar work are still present.  Fans that have been waiting for a more-accessible Mars Volta disc should enjoy Octahedron.

In support of Beacons of Ancestorship, out June 9, Tortoise has announced a handful of summer tour dates around the USA and overseas.  Head here for the list.

The Dillinger Escape Plan will release its next album, which is due in early 2010, on Season of Mist in conjunction with the band's new label, Phonogetic Records.  The band is touring much of the US and Europe in June and July.

Issuing its first album in five years, MC-and-DJ duo Eyedea & Abilities is unveiling By the Throat on July 21 on Rhymesayers.

Genghis Tron is contributing to a track on the new Converge album, which is being recorded this month.

On its MySpace page, Dysrhythmia has posted "Festival of Popular Delusions," the first track on its upcoming album, Psychic Maps.

Featuring Marcel and Manfred Rodriguez-Lopez, psych-groove outfit Zechs Marquise will release its debut full-length, Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, on Rodriguez Lopez Productions this fall.  The label is run by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Marcel and Manfred's famous brother from The Mars Volta.

The Beastie Boys have announced the name of their new album,  Hot Sauce Committee, which will be out sometime this fall.

Múm is releasing a new album, Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know, on August 24 on Morr Music.

Jón Birgisson of Sigur Rós is working on a "sort of solo record" that will feature the work of experimental composer Nico Muhly.

CDbaby.com, online home of self-released CDs and digital tunes, has decided to add single-song downloads.

Singer/songwriter Jay Bennett, formerly of Wilco, passed away on Sunday, May 24.  More tests are needed to determine the cause of death.

Diamond Watch Wrists

Each maintaining a busy 2009, Guillermo Scott Herren (Prefuse 73, Savath & Savalas) and Zach Hill (Hella, Bygones) join forces to create Diamond Watch Wrists, a project that holds elements of each artist but sounds unlike what one might imagine their collaboration to be.

Like Hill's 2008 solo record, Ice Capped at Both Ends is very much a pop record, for as unconventional as both records may be.  Reverberated, multi-layered vocals guide each track, similarly to Savath & Savalas, and Hill's beats are as focused and straightforward as they've been in a while.  Effects and ambiance hold important roles, but Herren's electronic Prefuse work essentially is a nonfactor here.

Given the impending release of the next Savath & Savalas release, it's an interesting time to release Ice Capped at Both Ends, but at first glimpse, the S&S disc contains more elements of Herren's initimable work as Prefuse 73.  It seems that we've entered an impressive stretch of Herren's creative legacy.

Themselves: theFREEhoudini (Anticon)

After a seven-year hiatus, Anticon hip-hop duo Themselves (Doseone and Jel) has returned with this free (for 90 days) "mixtape."  Consisting of one 39-minute track, the release serves as a self-remixed album and teaser for the duo's third full-length album, CrownsDown, due in August.

Doseone's nasally delivery is as aggressive as ever, presenting less of the high-pitched anti-raps from his work in Subtle. Jel's breakbeats carry the well-balanced mix, and hip-hop bedfellows Aesop Rock, Slug, Busdriver, and Yoni Wolf make well-placed appearances.  Like the duo's respective careers, theFREEhoudini is a compelling, original endeavor.

Soap&Skin: Lovetune for Vacuum (PIAS)

Austrian singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actress Anja Franziska Plaschg holds musical ability and power that is stunning for her age of 18.

On Lovetune for Vacuum, Plaschg's debut album, powerful, melancholy harmonies pour out of her throat and piano in contrast to softer, somber exchanges.  Vocal overdubs, pounding low keys, ominous sample, and bits of violin and electronics augment the main melodies as Plaschg channels influences from Bjork, Aphex Twin, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.  Prepare to hear a lot about Plaschg in the coming years.

Soap&Skin: "The Sun"
Soap&Skin: \"The Sun\"

Nadja: When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV (The End)

This interesting cover EP continues a highly prolific streak for Canadian heavy/ambient duo Nadja, which has a pair of upcoming albums due later in 2009 — one of which is a double release.

Foreseeable innovators like My Bloody Valentine and Swans are covered in baths of fuzz, feedback, and synthesizers, but less-predictable favorites such as Slayer, The Cure, Elliot Smith, and A-Ha also are turned on their heads.  Preexisting fans of Nadja and electro-noise dirge enthusiasts should both greatly enjoy this one.

Corey Wilkes & Abstrakt Pulse: Cries from tha Ghetto (Pi)

Trumpeter Corey Wilkes' debut album as a bandleader, Drop It, was released just 10 months ago on storied jazz/blues label Delmark Records.  The funky debut contained quirky soul jazz with moments of extended solos and improvisation, but Wilkes digs back to a bebop-fueled sound for this new release with his group Abstrakt Pulse.

Featuring the reed work of Kevin Nabors and the exemplary melodic guitar licks of Scott Hesse, the sextet fuses some 1960s Blue Note-era jazz with the freeform influence of Lester Bowie, a lauded experimentalist whose seat Wilkes filled for the Art Ensemble of Chicago.  The fusion on Cries from tha Ghetto isn't smashing any boundaries, but its execution is top notch.  Highly recommended for jazz heads.

Corey Wilkes & Abstrakt Pulse: "Visionary of an Abstrakt"
Corey Wilkes & Abstrakt Pulse: \"Visionary of an Abstrakt\"

Themselves @ The Empty Bottle (Chicago)

After a six-year hiatus, Anticon hip-hop duo Themselves (Doseone and Jel) has returned and will issue a third full-length album, CrownsDown, in August.  In advance of the anticipated release, the two get back on the stage during this early-spring North American tour.

Friday, March 27 & Saturday, March 28

Wil Blades Organ Trio @ Green Mill (Chicago)

An ascending jazz organist, Chicago native and San Francisco resident Wil Blades returns to the Green Mill with his Hammond B3 and luminous local guitarist Jeff Parker (Tortoise), who will join an unannounced drummer for Blades' classic, easygoing jazz sounds.

Meanwhile, Mike Patton has kept busy with yet another project — scoring his first feature film, Crank 2: High Voltage (out April 17).  His soundtrack for A Perfect Place, a short film noir, was one of last year's best albums.

In an interview with BBC, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys describes the group's next album, Tadlock's Glasses, as being a combination of live playing and obscure samples.  The album is expected to be out later this year.

Rapping virtuoso Doom — dropping the "MF" — has a new album, Born Like This, that will be out March 23 on Lex Records.

After a six-year hiatus, Anticon hip-hop duo Themselves (Doseone and Jel) has returned and will issue a third full-length album, CrownsDown, in August.

Definitive Jux rapper Cage has a new album, Depart From Me, that will be out June 30.  In the coming months, he'll also release a free EP, I Never Knew You, available through Def Jux and Adult Swim.

Mogwai has announced a new North American tour, running from April 20 to May 16.

Dinosaur Jr. has signed to Jagjaguwar and announced a five-week US tour that runs through April.  For these "intimate" shows, concertgoers will receive either a limited-edition 7" or a free digital download.

Atmosphere has announced a lengthy North American tour that runs from April 9 to May 22. The hip-hop duo gets great direct support from P.O.S. from April 9-24.

Psychedelic Cambodian pop-rock group Dengue Fever will provide musical accompaniment to the 1925 silent adaptation of The Lost World during the San Francisco International Film Festival on May 5.

Grizzly Bear's new album, Veckatimest, will be released May 26 on Warp.

One-man grind project Toxic Holocaust has announced a North American tour with Napalm Death that runs from early April to mid-May.

Ennio Morricone

Legendary film-score composer Ennio Morricone will write music for Inglorious Bastards, Quentin Tarantino's next film. Whether he has enough time to score the whole film remains to be seen.

Undefinable folk/hip-hop crossover artist Tim Fite has posted a video for "Big Mistake," his single from Fair Ain't Fair (Anti-). Watch it here.

Fellow Anti- artist and somber, raspy crooner William Elliot Whitmore now has "Old Devils" posted on the label's website. "Old Devils" is a track from Animals in the Dark, his new album due in February.

In promotion of its five-part series of remix records, electro-grind trio Genghis Tron has posted a track from the third volume. Head to the group's remix-specific MySpace page to hear Danny Lohner (of Nine Inch Nails) remix "Board Up the House."

Gorgeous electro-acoustic duo Lymbyc Systym has announced dates for its first European tour. The dates span two weeks and can be seen at its MySpace page.

Ambient horror soundtrack artists Zombi have released the cover artwork for their upcoming album, Spirit Animals, which will be released on February 3, 2009. The cover art is pretty freakin' awesome.

Multi-talented folk artist and loop specialist Andrew Bird has posted US tour dates for January and February in support of Noble Beast, his upcoming full-length due in winter. For now, fans can listen to "Oh No," the album's first track. Melodic genre masher Dosh opens for Bird at Carnegie Hall.

Blistering metal maniacs Burnt by the Sun have posted the first demo track, "F-Unit," from their long-awaited third full-length. The track, which will be on the group's first album since 2003, can be heard at its MySpace page.

Danish psychobilly/alt-country/surf-influenced trio Powersolo has uploaded "Murder in SFAX" to its MySpace page. The song will be on the group's upcoming album, which will be available in March.

Indie hip-hop label Anticon has announced a 10th anniversary show in New York City. The event will be held at The Knitting Factory and feature Themselves (Doseone, Jel), Yoni Wolf of Why?, Sole, Alias, Buck 65, Odd Nosdam, and more.

In a total no-brainer, GQ has named Nick Cave its "Rock 'n' Roll Badass of the Year."

On Alopecia and Elephant Eyelash, the group’s 2005 album, Wolf and his band-mates have never sounded more naked. Elephant Eyelash stripped away most of the samplers and overdubs of previous efforts in order to capture the energy of a melodic five-piece band. (Fog’s Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson joined full-time members Josiah Wolf and Doug McDiarmid in a Minneapolis studio.) But as Why? takes another step toward conventional band dynamics, their leader found himself moving back toward his roots in experimental hip hop. This time around, he approached his usual blend of fatalism and gallows humor with a newfound attention to lyrical craftsmanship.

“I had never been into rhyme before, never really valued it,” he admits. “I had been listening to a lot more intricately rhymed music and reading some more rhymed poetry, and I thought it might be fun to fuck around with that. I was doing a lot of crossword puzzles at the time, and it was almost like a more creative extension of that. You don’t want it to sound like it’s driven by the rhyme, so you have to make it real natural. It’s a real labored thing. But it’s a game. You either win or you lose and you throw it out. I’ve never written raps like that before.”

Mentioning the surreal hip-hop trio he once fronted with Doseone and Odd Nosdam, Wolf says, “I don’t think of it like the rap lyrics that I used to write or like the cLOUDDEAD stuff. I didn’t edit that strictly or be too hard on myself. It’s a new thing for me.”

What remains are tales of suicide and self-effacement, of contradictions and confidence. The symbol of the hand came to define the album from its themes of hard-won experience and twists of fate. “That has to do with making a connection to the world, being able to touch,” he says. “The mention of it on the song ‘Fatalist Palmistry,’ that’s kind of an epistle to this person that was into palm reading. She would be like, ‘Oh, no, no, no. This is what is wrong with you.’ I always thought that was kind of funny. ‘This is why we could never be together. Look! Your love line is fucked up.’ The other stuff, I didn’t even realize it was about that. It was just writing something in my sleep.”

-Matt Fink