Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting

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4...according to our Business Lady on Thu 16 Sep, 2010.

OK, Expressway Yo_YO Dieting is an amazing obscuro-hip-hip side line from Pat Marherr of Indignant Senility and it practically rivals A.P.A.T.T for the 'craziest wild shit to hit the office soundsystem this week' award! Yes! So, 'Bubblethug' is at it's core a proper hip-hop rekkid. It's got beats, breaks and rapping so it's a hip-hop record right? Well, not exactly. You see there's so much manipulation of sound going on here that it shares more in common with psych or lo-fi or perhaps 'hypnogogic' stuff with my only decent point of reference being Edan's immense psych'd out mix tape 'Echo Party'. This is way more fucked up than that but if you enjoyed 'Echo tape' then you'll have some idea of what to expect here. Marharr's voice is processed, processed and double processed so only a mutant time stretching super MC is left in his place and the music here is so abstract and tripped out that it makes me feel like I'm out of mind on uber powerful lifepipes. This is probably one of the craziest records I've been amused by in a long time and only repeat listens will help me determine what's really going on here. Totally recommended if you love hip-hop and are concerned it's running out of avenues to pursue....this guy seems to have at least some of the answers.

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Pat Maherr is probably best known for his explorations into fetishistic industrial ambience under the Indignant Senility moniker, but cassette hoarders will know that the Oregon-based producer runs a syrup-laced sideline in half-speed rap. Through a handful of tapes, Maherr's DJ Screw-influenced sound has already bagged him something of a cult following, but 'Bubblethug', his sophomore 'album proper', truly takes things further into the abyss, melting his signature pulse into a dark, viscous tar.Pitch shifting rap tracks might not be a new idea at this point (hell, it's practically mainstream practice in Houston), but Maherr takes this as just an entry point - slicing and stretching his chosen joints into a buzzing symphony of stutters, noise and chewed-up cassette tape. The resulting pieces are thick, heavy and pummelling - a demonic mid-point between punk and rap that mercifully avoids ska. The distant skeletons of the original songs are all but dissolved as the beats decompose noisily around them, dissolving choruses and crushing the life out of guest emcees.Links to lo-fi music, hypnogogic pop and psychedelic music will no doubt be made, but 'Bubblethug' is defiantly hip-hop from beginning to end. There's a beat, there's a rapper and with the help of Maherr's spread of tape machines and filters he's taking the genre to places it rarely gets to go. It might only tentatively balance on the 'elements' ... but when rap's got no other place to go, all that's left is to travel deep down into the annals of unacceptability.

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