3 out of 5

Label: Paper Bag Records

Producer: Two Fingers

It’s amazing!  …I guess?  So I’m making some suppositions here that are just based on the listening experience, but I did do my reading on ‘Two Fingers,’ and I think knowing what I know actually helped improve my opinion, which normally saw this as surprisingly uneven and ho-hum.  Now I can listen past the unevenness and just nod my head to the awesome beats, but I still find the album inherently flawed.  I just haven’t sought out some detailed description of the recording process to confirm my feelings, but I can’t do all the work for you, can I?  …I, I mean, I suppose I can, but… you’re not going to stop reading me because…

You don’t read me anyway, you say?  I’m just pointlessly fluffing out my review, which I tend to do when I’m bored by my own staid opinion?  How ridiculously meta of me.  Obviously untrue.

Look, here’s what I know: that Amon Tobin lived in Montreal for a bit and then teamed up with a more break-beat d’n’b DJ – Doubleclick – and they formed Two Fingers, dropping an album of hip-hop collabos and an instrumental version of that before Tobin would go his own way under the moniker for one album.  This is that collabo recording.  Which is what shifted how this sounded to me.  Instead of hearing it as Tobin trying to mock grime and dub-step, I began to hear each artist – Tobin’s world-beats underlining most of Sway’s tracks, and Doubleclick providing some thick, heavy and dirty breaks for the more ‘fuck police’ / ‘get down’ style tracks from Ms. Jade and Cécile.  And y’know, all the songs are actually pretty great.  Sway’s rhymes are quick and smart, and mixing it with Tobin’s sound is a truly unique experience, making the opening tracks some of the best hip-hop I’ve heard, the intelligence of the underground in the lyrics with the forward momentum of a club track.  DC’s stuff isn’t exactly what I’d find myself always listening to, but I’d be lying if the tracks don’t get me to bob my head with the vocal manipulations and, if typical in content, totally competent and concise deliveries by the two ladies mentioned.  Each track feels composed, both beat-wise and lyrically.

But while I know the album is some level of amazing through ears that know to label this stuff ‘garage,’ the sound, to me, just doesn’t synchronize.  It doesn’t feel like Tobin and Doubleclick actually blended their style so much as traded off.  Which makes this feel like a compilation, making it hard to really get into, or to side with a set emotion for it.  A lot of rap will bounce between meaningful and party tracks, but the different singers and different beat styles hear just take away any linking sensibility between the tracks, so each one feels like a separate experience, start over, feel again.  The ‘rhythm’ – instrumental – tracks included here, one midway through, one at the end – could’ve been a place for the duo to shine, but instead it just backs up the feeling.  Here’s Tobin’s bit, here’s Doubleclicks bits.  And then the track fades out.

Sway’s delivery is awesome; Ms. Jade and Cécile do their narratives justice, and show complete control over their vocals.  But if I didn’t know Tobin was, in part, at the helm, I doubt I’d be paying as much attention to the beats.  It’s a great experiment, but this kinda stuff takes practice, as AT’s years of learning how to move his established sound to use its own palette has taken quite some time.  We shall see.