Wednesday, November 17, 2010

#230 Busdriver - Computer Cooties

For some reason I went to see if Busdriver was touring, found out he put out a free mixtape. All kinds of free stuff by my old fav's coming out lately!

I've cooled on Busdriver a bit over the last 10 or so years; some of it's my taste in rap shifting, some of it's his style of rap shifting. The production kept getting glossier, the albums got less adventurous, and the emphasis on choruses kept growing. This is a pretty nice return to form though, sounding more exciting than anything he's done since Cosmic Cleavage (also C.C., coincidence?), with some nasty production, some curious song structure twists, and some good cross-album variety. Also, its going to take some time to take it all in, but my sense is also that there's a higher-than-usual density of clever turns of phrase to unpack in future listens.

If nothing else, I sure got that Girl Talk-style recognition-adrenaline rush going when Busdriver started rapping over Crystal Castles' Doe Deer (off an album I liked), Holy Fuck's SHT MTN (off an album I liked), and Wolf Parade's You are a Runner and I am my Father's Son (off and album I really liked, at #8 here). Those are some noisy ass songs to try to rhyme over, and to a strange degree, it works. Busdriver has always been at his best when he's rapping over something you don't normally rap over, and this gets me excited about his upcoming collaboration. Which, I guess was probably part of the reason for the timing of this mixtape. Well done then 4/5

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