Also this issue: A Man Up Father and Lilys frontman Kurt Heasley takes responsibility for the band he keeps rebuilding. -Brian Howard The Couple That Plays Together Megan and Mason Wendell run Canary Publicity all day and make music all night in The Method and Result. -Patrick Rapa Al Green -Paul Burress Mondo Generator -Sam Adams Simply Jeff -Sean O’Neal DAT Politics -Chris Nosal Cobra Verde -Brian Howard Karan Casey -Mary Armstrong

May 22-28, 2003

musicpicks

Fog/Dosh/Beans/ The Majesticons

by A. D. Amorosi

If hip-hop's avant alt universe had a Milky Way, these would be its darkest stars. Andrew "Fog" Broder upped the ante on sampladelic DJ programming with an ambience of messy swipes, scratches and crackles topped with creepy, twangy guitars and shy nasal rants that seem to mean something. Borrowing the lo-fi lilt, intrusive samples and snaky, subtle melodicism of his eponymous debut, Fog's new Ether Teeth (Ninja Tune) goes farther into spacey, piano-pierced hip-pop -- as heard on the oddly angled rock of "What A Day Day," the tender balladeering of "See It? See It?" and several scary pop collages. Occasional Fog drummer Martin "Doss" Dosh, like Broder, uses hip-hop as a blanket to lay a sweet, sad sound of cut-ups, cheap beats and toy pianos on his Anticon debut Doss. Fog and Dosh are far on the left of hip-hop, almost silently pioneering its cheapest technology into scary sounding neo hip-pop.

And in this corner: If Beans -- the mad socio-poet of the defunct electro-hop Antipop Consortium -- is serious, The Majesticons are comic relief. Though often De-La daffy on his Tomorrow Right Now (Warp), Beans' dry-ice rap and childlike tunes move from the balls-out ("Phreek The Beet") to the black-humored ("Mearle"); from ego-driven techno ("Raping Silence") to toxic spoken word ("Rose Periwinkle Plum"). Enter The Majesticons and their Beauty Party (Big Dada) album. With an often savage, satirical outlook on the consumerism of hip-hop culture, Mike Ladd and company (assisted by EL-P, among others) are lyrically caustic on their second CD, avenging the less-thans on "Platinum Blaque Party" and "Suburb Party." Unlike their broken beat avant-garde debut, Beauty lands The Majesticons squarely in P. Diddy-ville with syrupy-thick beats, big digestible melodies and recognizably sampled twists.

Fog, Dosh and Kandywhales, Fri., May 23, 9:30 p.m., $7-8, 21+, Doc Watson’s, 216 S. 11th St.; The Majesticons, Beans, Gentle Jones and DJ Kilimanjaro, Tue., May 27, 7:30 p.m., $10, all ages, First Unitarian Church, 22nd and Chestnut sts.; 800-594-8499.