Review: Death Grips

Death Grips niggas on the moon (Harvest/Third Worlds, 2014)

Death Grips have never taken a conventional approach in releasing their albums, with 2012's NO LOVE DEEP WEB being leaked by the group against the will of their ex-record label, Epic, and 2013's Government Plates dropping out of the blue to the delight of hype-beasts and experimental hip-hop junkies everywhere. niggas on the moon was no exception to this rule, with their latest release going viral via their Facebook page, with little more than the information that the Icelandic avant-garde veteran, Björk, features on all 8 tracks, alongside the kind words "have a sad cum bb". The post was then signed off from "us", which incidentally has caused much dispute over the album's controversial title considering the ethnic backgrounds of both the drummer and producer in the band.

Rory Ferreira A.K.A Milo, nerd-rap's "loquacious public speaker", had an awful lot to say about say about the choice of the title niggas on the moon almost immediately after the album's release early in the morning of the 9th of June, stating that "two white dudes [Zach Hill and Andy Morin] just put out a record called niggas on the moon and i hate them for it". A bold comment with logical reasoning, no doubt, but Twitter's general lack of acknowledgement towards to the album title really epitomises the current state of hip-hop lyricism whereby the 'n word' has become almost meaningless. The offence that the word once carried has effectively been forgotten and thus it is used in the bad taste that Ferreira spoke of more often nowadays, so it will be interesting to see the band's reaction to the criticism at a future date.

The album's content, however, is indisputable, and although it is clear that the band has taken yet another extensive change in direction with their latest release being driven by MC Ride's fervent raps as opposed to the synthesisers and percussion loops that very much distinguished Government Plates, the band's most powerful attributes have been grinded together and in doing so, Death Grips have produced their most refined work as of yet, and what can only be described as a contemporary masterpiece. niggas on the moon opens with a thunderous track, "Up My Sleeves", that really sets the scene for the album as it is characterised by the violent darkness of Ride's lyrics; 'I was conceived by my disease' being a particularly stand out line with it feeling like an extension of NO LOVE DEEP WEB's introductory track "Come Up and Get Me" due to the harshness and brutality of Ride's raspy flow.

One thing that can be said for listening to the album for the first time is that it is certainly difficult to follow, with aggressive lyrics being lost in the mix of noisy drum patterns and Björk samples on "Have A Sad Cum" and footwork-like production on "Voila" adding a new dimension to the niggas on the moon experience. It is an album that unforgivingly forces itself upon you and leaks frenzied energy into your eardrums, but as far as experimental music goes, the first half of this album is an absolute game-changer.

2013: Joe Gilbey's Favourite Tracks

As Joe Sherwood said on his own 'Favourite Tracks of 2013' list, although one may be led to believe that an end of year tracks list should primarily consist of tracks produced by those on the same person's albums list, there is far more to the process than that. An album is usually written with all of the tracks on it in mind, and so the finished product gives off a vibe that is similar at the start of the album to the end of the album; it is a continual piece of art. A single, however, is usually produced for mainstream entertainment purposes in order for an artist to get out their piece of work and showcase it to the world as a glimpse of their abilities as a musician. This, therefore, made choosing the greatest tracks exceedingly difficult as 2013 has been such a brilliantly diverse year, and although they have been ordered, I feel that any track could slide into my top 10 depending on what mood I'm in. Anyway, here's the list.

2013: Joe Gilbey's Favourite Albums

I like keeping my forenotices short and sweet, and so all I really have to say is that 2013 has been an absolutely fucking insane year in the world of music. Thank you to everyone that has made the year such a good one for //APEX, we promise to supply you with many more great features in 2014. But yeah, here's my long-awaited AOTY list. Enjoy.

Review: Death Grips

Death Grips Government Plates (Third Worlds, 2013)

"Fuck you". It's an appropriate lyric for Death Grips. "Fuck you" is Death Grips to a T. They say "fuck you" to record labels and fans alike. MC Ride's various quotables demonstrate an extreme lack of self-preservation - he don't give a fuck about himself. All signs point towards two middle fingers to everyone and everything. Their latest "fuck you" is Government Plates, released with absolutely zero fanfare onto the unsuspecting Deep Web, complete with visual accompaniments to each of the eleven tracks. Suffice to say, the people of the blogosphere lost their shit, all of them scrambling to write a feature on Government Plates as fast as they possibly could. It's strange to think a band as hostile and abrasive as Death Grips could invoke this sort of madness, but it's as good a testament as any to the group, who have been turning heads since 2011 with their incendiary blend of hip-hop, industrial, noise, rock, etc. No group working in the confines of hip-hop sounds quite like Death Grips, and Government Plates is possibly the furthest-removed from hip-hop they've reached in their short, trailblazing lifespan.

What's initially striking about this release is that MC Ride's vocal involvement seems to have been significantly pared back. A lot of the dense lyricism that blew your system on The Money Store and No Love Deep Web has been reduced to short, stabbing phrases. Take the previously released "Birds", wherein MC Ride does his best Lil B impression: he clumsily stumbles over his words, pays little attention to conventional rhyme schemes (not that Death Grips are renowned for their conventional approach to lyricism) and just generally sounds unfocused, disorientated even. It's a bewildering change of pace from a guy who previously screamed lyrical abstractions about paranoia, murder and Lady Gaga. Other tracks seem to remove Ride from the equation altogether, such as the twitchy "I'm Overflow", but his ferocious spirit is ever-present throughout the album by means of vocal manipulation and sampling, despite not having as much to say this time around.

Flatlander and Zach Hill's production on Government Plates remains resolutely Death Grips, but perhaps even less considerate of song structure than ever before. Stylistically this release lies somewhere between the cold, minimal No Love Deep Web and the overblown Money Store, with face-melting synths clattering against hard hitting drumming: the Dylan-referencing "You might think he loves you for your money but I know what he really loves you for it's your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat" opens the album fantastically with the sound of breaking glass, high-pitched skronk, Ride's disturbed shrieking and Hill's massive, masculine beats. While the pace is often altered, the intensity of this album remains constant, and it's indicative of a group who still abound with frenetic energy two years on from their original incision into hip-hop.

Primitive and guttural as ever, Government Plates is more than the stopgap it could have been. Instead, it's another highly satisfying collection of paranoid, twisted tracks, albeit with more emphasis placed on the frazzled music than MC Ride's mind-bending raps. In true Death Grips style, it also happens to be a free download, so say "fuck you" to everyone you know and cop this shit while it's hot. Tomorrow isn't coming, it's here right frickin' now, and it sounds insane.

FREE DOWNLOAD

(Not So) Retrospectives: Death Grips

A name on the lips of many a music blogger, and fans of music in general, is Death Grips, the alternative hip-hop outfit (comprised of Stefan "MC Ride" Burnett, and producers Zach Hill and Andy Morin) that has dealt with a fair amount of controversy in the past few days and months. Following the April release of The Money Store, the groups major label debut, it became clear that they were certainly worth keeping an eye out for, especially considering they had teased at No Love, the follow-up album, which was to be released in the fall. No Love became No Love Deep Web, and the album was cryptically teased further through a series of archive files, that revealed details about the release in Braille, QR code, and Morse, but to name a few. It quickly became one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year, but the saga took a turn for the stranger when record label Epic allegedly pushed the release back to 2013. The group took issue with this, and in one of the most daring stances against a major label ever, No Love Deep Web was self-released by Death Grips on October 1. To top off the controversial manner of its release, the artwork was revealed to be an erect phallus, complete with the album's title Sharpied onto it. No Love Deep Web has had over 30 million legal downloads since its release, and in the past few days, the group have been dropped by Epic, in a move that suprised nobody. So, here's to Death Grips; 2012's most brilliant troublemakers. Oh, and the albums are pretty good as well.


The Money Store

Following Exmilitary, the 2011 mixtape, Death Grips were an exciting prospect, and with The Money Store, they just about fulfilled all of their promises. To describe the album, one could only use the word harsh; from the production to the lyrics, The Money Store is brash, often alienating, but always thrilling. And in a world filled with prima donna popstars and "rappers", the album is an adrenaline rush, and a wildly exciting experience. The production is abrasive and loud, with an eclectic range of influences, from rave to techno, to DnB to electro. Lyrics deal with racial issues, paranoia, and an age of materialism, particularly in closer Hacker, where pop culture references are dropped at will - MC Ride shouts that Gaga can't handle this shit, after claiming he will make your waters break in the Apple store - and it flows as a stream of consciousness, off-the-top-of-the-head piece of writing. The album is an outpouring of rage, and is gleefully unfocused in doing so. Overall then, The Money Store remains one of the calendar year's most essential listens, and is certainly a contender for album of the year. For any fans of Exmilitary worried about the group going pop following their major record deal, The Money Store is a chaotic, angry affirmation that they needn't fret.




No Love Deep Web 

In the aftermath of The Money Store, you could be forgiven for being excited about No Love Deep Web, the second album released by Death Grips in 2012. The downright bizarre, albeit innovative, promotion of No Love Deep Web only heightened the hype surrounding it. Just as it seemingly reached fever pitch, the albums release date was pushed back to 2013; the rest, as was explained in the opening paragraph, is history. So, here we have the single most controversial release of the year, in all its glory. How does it stack up against its predecessor? As it turns out, the group can be even more angry; the album is fairly sample-less, with dark Roland drum machine sounds being the key component of the production, and the production certainly feels a little colder, aggressive even, for it. Lyrics are, true to form, shouty and brimming with anger; suicide seems to be a constant running throughout No Love Deep Web, as MC Ride asks you to "Die with me/ Blow out the lights, take your life/ Ride the falling sky with me". He also comes across as quite fierce, more so than ever, providing quotables such as "I'm the coat hanger in your man's vagina", found on track Deep Web. No Love Deep Web is an undeniably riotous listen, and although it doesn't match the sheer inventiveness of The Money Store, it is intriguing nonetheless, and well worth the free download.