Words By Ian M.

The Pack is riding a few different trends in hip hop right now: skating, hyphy, and whispering. It seems however that their modest success is based on a combination of these “sounds” rather than any particular talent, other than infection. Part 2 Live Crew, part Tag Team, the teens sometimes seem like they are rapping about things they heard about on Too $hort albums growing up – often reaching for the most accessible rhymes – especially on “Ride My Bike” (a track which surprisingly is not about Huffy’s) where they rap awkwardness like “fuck her like a porn star/now I’m in a new car.”

Most people know The Pack for “Vans” – an ode to the punk rock shoe of choice – even though MTV refused to air the video because product placement and hip hop are anathema. The minimalist style attached to skate fashion lends itself to The Pack’s minimalist approach to production. What makes “Vans” a legit hip hop banger is its stripped down, no-production-tricks sound, as well as its refreshing approach to endemic materialism in hip hop. Dudes might be the Stephon Marbury’s of rap – telling kids to trade in their thousand dollar dunks for a pair of $30 Vans loafers: “Man, we be sportin’ Vans and we throw away Nikes,” they rap on the track.

The rest of the album slips in and out of the modest approach fans like about “Vans,” and flirts with the liver elements of hyphy. “Oh Go” – the group’s most successful attempt at a hyphy aesthetic – features some motherfucker chanting “Go!” while the team rhymes over fazers and heavy bass. The “Vans Remix” benefits greatly from the energy of Mistah F.A.B. who does the only real hyping on the album and declares this music “the Vans movement.”

There is a diversity to be appreciated in The Pack – who remain cool over a hi-hat and then switch it up and get hyphy on the next track. But somehow the group accomplishes this all while pretty much sounding the same. There’s really no content on this album – what gets across is much more of a feeling about teen life for kids in the Bay…kids who have record deals and number one singles really. Raise your hand if you had sex with more than seven strippers in high school.

For more info on The Pack, visit www.myspace.com/wolfpackmusik and www.upallnitemusic.com

Brick City’s Dälek (that’s right, that’s an umlaut homie) is exactly that shit that will have your old man shouting “turn that noise down or I’ll whoop your ass,” or have the geriatric widow downstairs pounding your floorboards with her broom. In other words, this shit is loud and noisy. Next month the trio drops Abandoned Language so I took a sec to throw their previous opus Absence in the rotation and tell you about what transpired.

Dälek – made up of MC dälek/producer Oktopus/and DJ Still on the ones and twos – is the sole hip hop resident on avant garde metal vocalist Mike Patton’s Ipecac Records. The music is sonic. Oktopus mixes organic and inorganic matter to much horror – merging jazzy walking basslines with irrecognizable guitar loops utterly perverted on a laptop sampler. MC dälek spits fiery rhetoric and knowledge with the diction and command that makes Chuck D and Immortal Technique so distinguishable – problem is that he so often blends into the atmospherics and is lost. The entire composition then is aural and moody – but at the core there is really only one mood…pissed off.

Most call Dälek a hip hop Sonic Youth or Velvet Underground (personally I would say Rage Against the Machine in both content and delivery). Mixing amp feedback with booming 808 kicks. Mixing drone rock (meant to hypnotize) with head nods (meant to engage) turns the listener into an extra on the Thriller video. Over distorted landscapes, MC dälek speaks history – from first man to the slave trade to today’s legacy of both. With the rhythm of a poet in drunken prose, MC dälek often loses the beat, but motherfucker packs a mean punch. Just in time for MLK Day, MC dälek asks “What, now we equals cause we have a King’s holiday?” on “Asylum.” All the while rhyming over the most unconventional patterns in hip hop MC dälek contends “At heart I’m strict purist” on “Culture for Dollars.”

A hip hop Jackson Pollock painting…this shit is dark…like swimming in motor oil with the lights off. While the lyrics range from depressing to empowering and the beats from annoying to aural, the question remains: where do you bump Dälek? In your car? If you want to blow your new components kit. In your headphones? Bring a tissue to wipe the blood that will inevitably flow from your ears. At home after work? Relax after a long day to a guy rapping over a pissed off fax machine. Dälek’s Absence is the soundtrack to the last man on Earth, a cold, alien, place where you can play your music as loud as you want…because everyone’s dead…ha.

Dalek – Absence

For more info on Dalek visiwt www.myspace.com/dalek and www.IpecacRecordings.com.
Stray Shots

Sa-Ra Creative Partners – Dark Matter & Pornography

DJ Mark The 45 King – 45 Kingdom

DJ Mark The 45 King – Master Of The Game

The RZA – The Protector OST

Hittman – The Murder Weapon

CL Smooth – American Me

Lord Finesse – From The Crates To the Files

O.C. – Word…Life

O.C. – Jewelz

Black Moon – Diggin In Dah Vaults

Stray Shots File