Antipop Consortium

Following The Isolationist (1999), a collaboration with DJ Vadim, the Antipop Consortium rejuvinated hip-hop with their debut album, Tragic Epilogue (2000). Producer Earl Blaize's disjointed arrangements (reminiscent of early electro productions) enhanced the abstract lyrics of the three vocalists: poet Robert "Beans" Stewart and former filmmakers Kyle "High Priest" Austin and Maurice "M Sayyid" Greene. Blaize crafts the oneiric background of Your World Is Flat, the disorienting loops of 9.99, the menacing electronic embers of Lift, the free-form collage of Eyewall, the convoluted percussive pattern for the madcap nursery rhyme of Driving in Circles and the glitchy psychedelic funk wrapping of What Am I. The weakest element is the rapping itself. Neither the voices nor the lyrics are particularly enticing. Rinseflow is the atmospheric peak of the rapping, despite the relatively simple instrumental. 3 Digit Wiz is an almost self-parodistic litany. However, the monotonous narrations of Laundry, Sllab, Heatrays and Disorientation are the problem, not the solution. The arrangements only partially redeem the words. The album contains several brief interludes that display bigger ambitions, for example Monster Sex, which is six seconds of glitchy static noise.

Their "digital hip-hop" became even more ambitious on Shopping Carts Crashing (2001), although the real songs mostly failed (M being the notable exception) and the best was to be found in the brief instrumental intermezzos and in a couple of futuristic tracks (Excerpt From The Forthcoming Epic, Systaltic Quiescence).

Arrhythmia (Warp, 2002) belongs more to the producer than to the rappers. Bubblz has a complex synth soundscape, a carillon lullaby propels Ping Pong, Conspiracy Of Myth mixes funky moves and a circular synth-pop motif, Dead in Motion sticks rodent noise inside its swaggering beat. Earl Blaize's most sophisticated productions steal the show, like the wooden and aquatic beat of We Kill Soap Scum and the frenzied robotic beat of Ghostlawns. The rapping is deranged in Silver Heat and militaristic in Human Shield. Several songs feel unfinished, just two minutes of tentative ideas. The album is a confused hodge-podge of eccentric moves.

Beans' solo album Tomorrow Right Now (2003), containing the single Phreek the Beat, adopted a more intellectual stance, further abstracting his spoken-word style and pinning it against intelligent instrumental hip-hop. Shock City Maverick (2004) is much more straightforward dance music (You're Dead Let's Disco, Papercut, Shock City Maverick, A Force of Edge, Death By Sophistication). Beans collaborated with jazz giants William Parker and Hamid Drake for Only (Thirsty Ear, 2006).

Beans' Thorns (Adored and Exploited, 2008) is more organic than its predecessor but also less vital, and End It All (2011) felt a bit obsolete in 2011.

Beans, High Priest, and M. Sayyid reformed the Anti-Pop Consortium for Fluorescent Black (Big Dada, 2009), their first album together in six years, that also featured producer Earl Blaize. The general course is the same inaugurated with Arrhythmia (2002), a "poppy" one (relatively speaking). Hence the emotional Born Electric and Volcano. There are still jarring experiments with beats and arrangements, notably New Jack Exterminator, Capricorn One and Lay Me Down, but that doesn't sound like it's the point anymore.