4 out of 5

Label: Hydra Head

Producer: Various

It took me a while.  Deadverse Massive is sort of how it’s title sounds – this is a pretty sprawling work, covering some long ambient pieces, some experimental stuff, some straight-forward hip-hop, some remixes.  It’s also my first Dälek listen, which, yeah, starting with a rarities collection probably isn’t the best, but god damn it’s also really caught me off guard with how varied are the abilities of this group.  Hip-hop comes in many flavors from the spectrum of backpack hip-hop up to mainstream stuff, but, generally, you get some pretty common comparisons for “intelligent” rap, with KRS-One or Tribe up there as people who knew their music and spun it to not only head-nodding effect, but thought provoking as well.  Still, there are stigmas with the “smart” hip-hop scene – that it gets overly positive (the flip-side to gangster rap) or perhaps overly political as well.

The Dälek crew’s rhymes set my head spinning.  They definitely lean toward the darker side of the street, and sure, they flirt with common themes of being the best rhyme-slingers or being true to yourself, but the shine has been worn off with an element of realism.  Every corner their songs turn ’round was unexpected, pushing the lyrics to territories and patterns I haven’t really seen in this style of music.  One of the most abrasive tracks is also one of the most compelling listens on there – 3:46, a rambling rally against commercialism, or structure, slung atop beatless noise.  It is mean – it is harsh – but it’s one of the most intense songs I’ve heard.  Sonically, I think this remix / alternate cuts collection was a good way to make me listen up.  I had to go through this a few times to grasp the subtleties in the longer ambient pieces, and there’s not really a song with a beat that jumps out at you – these are late night shuffles, perhaps more “groove” than typical hip-hop beats, but once the MCs start rhyming atop it, there’s no mistaking it for something that’s trying to make you dance, it’s just too dark for that.  So once I had my ears set to the right level, tuned in, the songs just opened up.  There are still a couple of lulls in the album, tracks that are just hard to sequence into this, no matter how interesting they are taken alone, and these do, for better or worse, make the run-time seem longer than the already long 70+ minutes, but you work with what you have for these kinds of compilations.  That’s really the only star-docking, is that the album appropriately sneaks up on you, but it’d be nice if it went out with more of a bang.

I also struggled a bit with connecting this to the Hydra Head roster.  Kid606 appears, and he has some links to the label, but that afore-mentioned 3:46 really cinched it.  The HH ethic has evolved into supporting (beyond their hardcore circle of recognizable player) those who would push music in new directions.  Dälek’s rhymes and layered beats already set them in a class all their own, but that one song is an example of something I’ve never heard before, a genre mash-up that shouldn’t work at all but works perfectly.  If you’re like me and starting here, this is absolutely a headphones affair and you need to give it a couple of spins.  If you’re lucky enough to already by a Dälek fan, I’m sure some of what’s on here are gems.