I was trawling through the ever growing mounds of promo, when I spotted the pun-tasticly named ‘Breakmaster Cylinder‘, which made me chuckle. Cracked open the email and found one of the most eclectic chunks of sliced and diced beats I’ve heard in a *very* long time.
Goes to show that a well chosen name can make you stand out from the crowd.
Short Attention Span Theater does exactly what it says on this tin, giving you ADHD hip-hop beats for those with the attention span shorter than … ooooooh look squirrels!
There’s samples from absolutely everywhere – from Peter, Paul & Mary to Lil Wayne, from Rage Against the Machine to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, with a (blessedly short) interlude into brutal Thrash metal, all covered in a deft sprinkling of drum machines, odd synth lines, and vocals from everyone from The Beatles to Die Antwoord – at some points I was laughing out loud at the totally mental juxtapositions he’s stitched together.
Imagine Japanese Language exercises turn into breakcore bangers, and Aretha Franklin expertly blended with Scott Joplin the vocal from Gangnam Style you’ve got the flavour for some of the tracks he’s put together
Stand out tracks for me are the hilarious Revolution Number Mom, the filthy squelch of Brake Laws and the Biggie/Method Man/Muppets collabo on Rap Phenomena but this really is one to be taken more as a whole, rather than as the odd track here and there.
If you want an album which sounds like the Avalanches off their Ritalin, and had been stuffing themselves with the contents of the sweetshop, or Coldcut at their anarchic best but with a tongue firmly in to their cheek and you’ve a Short Attention Span Theater
Bravo sir!
The album dropped on the 27th September, and it’s available from Breakmaster Cyclinders bandcamp, on a ‘pay what you want’ deal
Rap Phenomena
Aretha Franklin – Gangnam Style ’65 (feat. Scott Joplin)
The whole shebang, complete with a ‘guess that sample’ game is here
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