Browse by Label: ANTICON

Artist:	THEMSELVES
Title:	Them
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ABR 010CD

"Themselves, formerly Them, are Doseone and Jel -- the former a nowhere man out to make the world small and his neuroses something lovely, an artist free of form and slave to his own scatterbrained genius; the latter the drum machine's premier musician, whose distinct few-bit sound and rhythmic sensibilities get him coveted by vocalists and MCs far and wide. Them was originally released as a self-titled album by them in May of 2000 when little about Anticon was known or understood; the record went out of print about a year after its release. For many, this album introduced the ground-breaking, genre-defying madness of the duo. Jel's distinct sound naturally facilitates Doseone's surreal vocals, evoking another world entirely. The record is a funhouse ride turned ugly -- through childlike daydreams and social rants, to hip hop bravado and just outright strangeness."

Artist:	SOLE
Title:	Bottle Of Humans
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 011CD

"Bottle of Humans, Sole's debut full length release on Anticon, and his first widely distributed record, was released in 1999 and quickly became a cult-classic, but by the year 2001 the record's initial pressing went out of print due to a dispute with Anticon's previous distributor. The bootlegging is finally over. This highly anticipated CD reissue has been re-mastered, the record's artwork has been revitalized the way it was originally intended (including the album's lyrics in the liner notes) and its track listing has been slightly altered. Bottle of Humans combines the anger and conviction of early Ice Cube with Sole's own brand of self-deprecating honesty. Whether he's lashing out at the hypocrisy of 'the industry' or celebrating the sad state of his own life, you know it's coming from his heart, it sounds big, and you believe every word of it. Looking and sounding better than ever, Bottle of Humans is classic, vintage Sole. Features production from Alias, Jel, Daddy Kev, Raggity Andy, Scott Matelic, Odd Nosdam, and Controller 7."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Anticon We Ain't Fessin' (Double Quotes)
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$7.00
Catalog #:	ABR 019CD

"The Anticon posse's rhyme-testing, extremely abstract title cut, originally heard on the giga-single, gets more than just a remix; it gets a wrecking ball. As soon as you think you get it, they've moved on to the next thing. By the time it's all over, you realize that you're going to have to play it back. 'More From June,' the lost Deep Puddle Dynamics song, is on the flip, with anticon MCs Dose One, Sole and alias, along with Slug and Eyedea of Rhymesayers, over the music of Tortoise's John Herndon. CD includes the bonus track 'Pitty Party People.'"

Artist:	FRANCIS, SAGE
Title:	Personal Journals
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	ABR 021CD

"Sage Francis, AKA Xaul Zan, AKA Strange Famous, member of the witness protection program, 2000 Scribble Battle MC Champ, 1999 Superbowl Battle MC Champ, and nationally ranked slam poet 1998 and 1999, is finally dropping an official, full length album. Sage or 'Stage Presence' has gained a reputation from ripping live shows with his emotionally intense songs, freestyles, and spoken words, but this album provides a comprehensive and definitive introduction to a very different kind of MC and person. Recorded over the period of a year, Personal Journals beautifully chronicles Sage's often times painful life -- from relationships to being an outsider. Sage has also employed a host of producers for beats on this album, including, Sixtoo, jel (Atmosphere, Deep Puddle Dynamics, them), mayonnaise, Joe Beats, odd nosdam, Mr. Dibbs, alias and more. This album is destined to be the reference point for emo-hip hop."

Artist:	ALIAS
Title:	The Other Side Of The Looking Glass
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	ABR 022CD

"The humble godfather of goth-hop and once-unsung seminal ironman of Anticon, alias avenges the downtrodden and abused producer-rapper. Composing music from his deepest shades, this irrefutable jack of all trades drops anchor with a debut solo full length intended to serve as hiphop's response to a Stevie Wonder record, with virtually all writing, composition, and production created by the artist himself. This collection of introspective lyrics rapped over ethereal, minor-chord drones, dark samples, and aggressive, dubbed-out drum beats was recorded in home studios between December 1998 and October 2001. The production is rainy-day contemplative and rhythmically menacing, and the mixes sound simultaneously calculated and spontaneous."

Artist:	SOLE
Title:	Salt On Everything
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	12"
Price:	$6.50
Catalog #:	ABR 024EP

"Although it might seem impossible, sole has been resurrected from the dead once again and he sounds even more jaded and fed up than ever. sole maintains his complex delivery and original style but this single demonstrates that he has refined everything he does so well. In his signature hoarse voice, sole assaults hard, brooding tracks from anticon producers odd nosdam, alias, and jel with that characteristic honesty, sincerity and a touch of endearing self-pity. Features an exclusive track with Sage Francis."

Artist:	THEMSELVES
Title:	The No Music.
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ABR 025CD

"Themselves, formerly Them, are Doseone and Jel -- the former a nowhere man out to make the world small and his neuroses something lovely, an artist who is free of form and slave to his own scatterbrained genius; the latter the drum machine's premier musician, whose distinct few-bit sound and rhythmic sensibility get him coveted by vocalists far and wide. The no music. is Dose and Jel's second full length, an American ode to the exposed nerve. At times the soundscape is layered to the point of opacity, only to peel away and reveal the sometimes buried drum bone and sick sung skeleton beneath. The no music. sounds like the polyphony of all the machines in the factory that turn fetus heads into skulls. The project is dark, maybe morose in parts, but it never takes itself too seriously for too long. Although the words are sometimes cloaked beneath layers of noise, they are consistent, confidently self-aware, and deliberately interrelated. The no music. is part composition, part organized chaos."

Artist:	SOLE
Title:	Selling Live Water
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ABR 026CD

"Twenty-five, bookless, bored, obsessive, hypocritical, barb-witted, full of shit, and horrified by the war machine; what else could this outspoken tangle of contradictions do but make the next classic rap album? Sole lives out a perpetual identity crisis so we don't have to, surfacing each of his past lives in his music: the 13-year-old Ice Cube from Maine, the Lord Finesse-styled battle MC who ruled open mics in New England, the hyperactive San Francisco transplant consumed with the idea of anticon, and finally the sagacious mid-twenties writer who hums Dylan and guns for Bush."

Artist:	FRANCIS, SAGE
Title:	Makeshift Patriot
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	LP
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	ABR 027LP

"Makeshift Patriot was written, recorded and released free to the public exactly one month after 9/11/01. Consisting mainly of news reporter quotes, it is basically an attack on popular media and an indirect attack on its na�ve audience. Makeshift Patriot contains six brand new Sage Francis tracks to follow up his critically acclaimed, debut album, Personal Journals. Featuring music from AOI, MF Shalem, Meaty Ogre, and a politically charged, spoken word track entitled 'Hey, Bobby', this piece of vinyl shouldn't be one of a kind in content or purpose... but it is."

Artist:	ODD NOSDAM
Title:	No More Wig For Ohio
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ABR 028CD

"A young odd nosdam began meddling with machines in the mid-'90s, looping his favorite Nirvana riffs on a Sega Genesis CD player and filling tapes with noise collage. Since then he has compiled at least three solo full lengths, as well as a number of collaborations, including the highly acclaimed cLOUDDEAD. nosdam has developed his own distinct sound, drawing inspiration from a broad palette ranging from Flying Saucer Attack and Hood to the RZA and everything in between and outlying. nosdam allows his many mental ups and downs, quirks and eccentricities to seep deep into his sound creations -- a rare quality among modern instrumental artists. No More Wig for Ohio is a meticulously deliberate two-part arrangement of instrumental songs and far found sounds collaged into a maniacal music quilt that somehow retains cohesiveness."

Artist:	WHY?
Title:	oaklandazulasylum
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ABR 029CD

"In addition to his membership in cLOUDDEAD and reaching quiet, why? has collaborated with Hood, Fog, boombip, jel and sole. why?'s quirky production and infectious melodies are merely sugar coating for the contents of a young man with unbuttoned lips and a gut spitting words. oaklandazulasylum, why?'s first official self-produced full-length release, is fourteen lonely art songs recorded over two years' time. With sharp focus and visceral lyrics set in decisive production, each song maintains individuality while positioned to fulfill its unique role in the record's sequence."

Artist:	SOLE
Title:	Plutonium - Selling Live Water
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	12"
Price:	$7.00
Catalog #:	ABR 030EP

"Plutonium, the follow-up 12" to Sole's acclaimed full length Selling Live Water has finally arrived. The title track remixes the classic, Alias-produced Sole anthem about searching for truth in left- and right-wing propaganda in the press. Alias remixes his own beat down to its teeth, creating a Blade Runner eeriness to sole's already dark ponderings. For the second track, Odd Nosdam remixes his original contribution to Sole's full length, the title track 'Selling Live Water'. Nosdam's remix puts Sole's vocals in the forefront, while maintaining that tape-dubbed dirtiness characteristic of Nosdam's sound."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Anticon Sampler 1999-2004
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$7.50
Catalog #:	ABR 031CD

"Featuring Sage Francis, alias, Markus Archer of the Notwist, odd nosdam, dosh, why?, themselves (doseone and jel), sole, deep puddle dynamics (featuring Slug of Atmosphere), yet-to-be-released tracks by pedestrian, passage, sole, jel and restiform bodies. The Anticon Sampler CD features a selection of tracks from the past, present and future of the Anticon catalog at a back-breaking low price. The sampler introduces the label to the novices, clarifies the Anticon collective for the confused, educates those who are unlearned, offers our dedicated fans a chance to preview some unreleased tracks from upcoming full lengths."

Artist:	DOSH
Title:	Dosh
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ABR 032CD

"Martin Dosh, most well known as the drummer and Rhodes piano player in the Minneapolis band Fog (Ninja Tune), has struck out on his own with his debut solo record. When he wasn't practicing drums, playing in bands around Minneapolis or teaching drums to elementary school students, Dosh was collecting hours upon hours of drum breaks and keyboard riffs in the basement of his house, a room cluttered with musical instruments, old samplers and effects pedals, blown out amps and a couple of dusty couches. He worked for a little over a year putting sounds to tape with the occasional accompaniment of friends. These recordings would become this collection of 12 self-engineered, mature instrumentals. Dosh's live drums, which are filtered, overdriven, looped, and effected, sound like a robot with human hands playing a beat-up kit through a vacuum cleaner. They are set in layers of sad, jazzy piano keys, beautiful feedback ambiance, vibes, reverb and delay-drenched Casios, turntables, guitars, and Dictaphone tape. The album displays a full hi-fi sound spectrum while maintaining the down-to-earth honesty of a homemade recording. Riding the faders, mutes and effects knobs, Dosh mixes in the spirit of Lee 'Scratch' Perry, making each pass a one-of-a-kind, spontaneous performance."

Artist:	ALIAS
Title:	Eyes Closed EP
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$7.50
Catalog #:	ABR 033CD

"The eyes closed EP is five beautifully arranged instrumental songs of filtered polyrhythmic percussion, fat chopped drums, droney synths, pretty string samples and some TV and radio overdubs with anti-imperialist / anti-consumer sentiments. Each of the five tracks stands alone, a four-minute electronic pocket symphony with movements and themes, while smoothly transitioning into the next. A departure from early sample-heavy, loop-based alias productions, tracks laden with washy keyboards and eerie guitar rely more on Alias's multi-instrumental talents. Lying somewhere between ambient Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, eyes closed seems akin to Boards of Canada or early Aphex Twin while maintaining some of the boom bap of roots hiphop -- at the same time rainy day contemplative and rhythmically menacing."

Artist:	THEMSELVES
Title:	The No Music of AIFFs
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 034CD

"Themselves are Doseone and Jel. The No Music of AIFF's is the companion piece to the duo's September 2002 release, The No Music. The original has been remixed down to its smallest intestine and back toward the light until only the order of its tracks remains intact. The record features a new themselves song along with guest remixers Controller7 and matth, Hrvatski, why?, Hood, alias, A Grape Dope (John Herndon), Fog, odd nosdam, The Notwist and Electric Birds. The listening experience that follows is a personality-heavy splay of the thousand threads in every of sort of human music. Twelve diverse guest artists were selected in a real life lottery from an entire globe's worth of eligible home recordists. Each original track is reborn - re-contextualized and translated, through a new lens, unique to each of the guest artist's sensibilities."

Artist:	WHY?
Title:	Early Whitney EP
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	ABR 035CD

"Why? grew up in Cincinnati playing kickball in the cul de sac and watching 8-bit Nintendo in his big brother's attic bedroom. The minor key melodies of religious music and the tight belt, tight-laced shoes of his soft-spoken middle childhood in part provide the impetus for why?'s candy-time-dissonant, singsong-suicide style. In addition to his membership in cLOUDDEAD and reaching quiet, why? has collaborated with Hood, Fog, boombip, jel and sole; he has toured the world twice, performed two Peel Sessions under the cLOUDDEAD moniker, and is admired by Boards of Canada, Mum, Stereolab, Danielson Famile, The Notwist and Mogwai. why?'s quirky production and infectious melodies are merely sugar coating for the contents of a young man with unbuttoned lips and a gut spitting words. Picking up where why?'s well-received oaklandazulasylum left off, the Early Whitney EP maintains why?'s unique, off-kilter, dirty-drum, digital, dark folk constructed with samplers, guitars, keyboard and all kinds of found sounds. Over unique song structures why? delivers pretty melodies and catchy, sing-songy half-raps. The record starts out with the hair-raising title track (initially released on oaklandazulasylum) 'Early Whitney,' a sad song about all things being mortal. The rest of the side continues with a similar feel and theme. Just as original and sweet as his melodies are why's words. The tracks on Side A are introspective, moody and lonely dissections of the human condition, with memorable lines like 'you should whistle when you walk past a graveyard and hide your face in your trench coat collar' on 'Ladyfingers,' whereas Side B is more topical with songs like 'Darla,' a whimsical vegan anthem of sorts, starring a hen named 'Darla.' 'Me on Beer' ponderings class-ism, and 'the crest' brings it all back home."

Artist:	ALIAS
Title:	Muted
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 036CD

"Alias is the humble and once unsung, seminal iron man of Anticon --an avenger of the producer/rapper type, whose music sounds his own at the turn of every instant. Part Brian Eno and part Kraftwerk, muted is akin to Boards of Canada or early Aphex Twin while maintaining some of the boom bap roots of hiphop. Alias uses muted to explore(and at times parody) the 'boundaries' between what is considered hiphop and what is considered electronica. Tracks exaggerate and underline these distinctions, but the approaches are so closely fused, it's not clear where one begins and the other ends."

Artist:	PASSAGE
Title:	The Forcefield Kids
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 038CD

"Passage's is the kind of electro-new-wave-industrialfolk-hospital-waiting-room hope-hop that you can dance or die to. The self-produced Forcefield Kids is full of distorted lo-bit jiggy drums; chopped-up, backward harps and French horns; distinctive synths with envelopes and filters; acoustic guitars; playful, heavy words; and catchy-ass melodies. Passage capably references and blends a seemingly infinite library of influences. Who would have thought that someone could create a hardcore, new wave, melodious fast-raps record, with sweeter-than-candy indie-pop hooks?"

Artist:	PASSAGE
Title:	Creature In The Classroom
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	12"
Price:	$7.00
Catalog #:	ABR 039EP

"The lead single for Passage's upcoming, self-produced full length, The Forcefield Kids. The title track, an unintentional anthem for disaffected youth, encapsulates the miserable moments of everyone's high school years. The second track on the A-Side, 'Poem to the Hospital,' creates the kind of hospital waiting room scene that could take place only in a David Lynch film. Layered with distinctive synths, rattling, distorted, low-bit drums, and sung with Passage's signature melodious fast raps, the Creature in the Classroom 12-inch gives a sense of Passage's genius. He blends and references hardcore, new wave, indie-pop, electro, fast rap and just about everything else."

Artist:	PEDESTRIAN
Title:	Volume One: unIndian Songs
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 044CD

"Pedestrian synthesizes different forms -- spoken, preached, sung, rhymed and unrhymed. His sense of language is classicist, and the album evokes a warm spirit of collaboration among friends and artistic equals. History looms large in Pedestrian's vision, both aesthetically and thematically. His excavation of history rethinks and reckons with hiphop's last thirty years through samples, direct quotes, and stylistic references. A beautiful variety of accents in cultures across time and space is present, with nods to Dylan Thomas, Lorca, Reverend J.M. Gates and the southern 'shouter' tradition of preaching, pre-WWII American folk music, Biblical and gospel imagery."

Artist:	TELEPHONE JIM JESUS
Title:	A Point Too Far to Astronaut
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 046CD

"A Point Too Far to Astronaut is a psychedelic collage of spacey samples, droning synths, hard-hitting drums, early- '60s vocal samples, pretty guitar riffs and sweet piano melodies, interwoven with surreal poetry pieces from what sounds like a lost Dictaphone. The mood of the record ranges from hallucinatory to sad and contemplative, to paranoid and angry, to good old sarcastic. Embracing a bit of ADD, the record demonstrates tel.jim.jesus's range of ability. With its short track lengths and varying moods, the record never loses the listener's interest and at the same time maintains cohesiveness throughout. A Point Too Far to Astronaut reads like a Douglas Adams novel. The most remote destination imaginable is really only as distant as you want it to be."

Artist:	SOLE
Title:	Live from Rome
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 048CD

"And so Sole re-emerges roughly two years after the aesthetic and critical breakthrough of his second album, Selling Live Water, having moved to Spain, married, and continued to refine his inimitable blurring of sarcasm and bone-dry honesty. The lion's share of the music is, like Selling Live Water, laid down by odd nosdam and alias, but Sole has noticeably changed: the enflamed and verbose jeremiads of Selling Live Water have cooled slightly into a more reflective -- and effortlessly funny -- simmer. Live from Rome, recorded and produced both in Oakland, California, and Barcelona, Spain -- no, it's not a live recording -- has heavier hooks and a noticeably broader palette, moving from upbeat, half-serious vegan anthems to the half-kidding faux Eminem."

Artist:	13 & GOD
Title:	Men of Station
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	12"
Price:	$7.50
Catalog #:	ABR 049EP

"The Men of Station 12" is the world's first introduction to the musical monument that is the 13 & God album -- the auspicious meeting of minds and bodies that emerged from a German September shared by anticon's themselves and The Notwist. 13 & God's debut single bleeds warmth and love onto riding melancholia. The plain words of Markus Acher steal the spotlight, curling themselves around the band's music, while B-side 'Soft Atlas' showcases some of doseone's finer neuroses. His poetry calls the earth's axis into question over a track that pulses with punched-out drums, only to be levelled by subtle guitar pluck and vocal harmony. Exclusive to this release are two sweeping remixes by Why? and Hrvatski."

Artist:	JEL
Title:	Soft Money
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	ABR 056CD

"The head architect of anticon's aural acropolis at long last offers his album-length debut, Soft Money. On 2002's 10 Seconds, Jeffrey 'Jel' Logan created a long-playing ode to his first real love, the SP-1200 sampler, composed entirely of hand-picked snippets from over three decades of hip-hop. Soft Money takes the same meticulous approach but expands it both literally and conceptually. Though undeniably rooted in the boom-bap of hip hop, this is an ode to all good music, channeled through one man, his machines, and a little help from his friends."

Artist:	PEEPING TOM
Title:	Peeping Tom
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	ABR 064LP

"Years in the making, Peeping Tom is noise-rock renaissance man Mike Patton's most accessible effort since his days in Faith No More. Like the landmark '60s thriller that inspired its name, Peeping Tom's modus operandi is devoid of physical intimacy. Patton wrote each song with a theoretical collaborator in mind, hoping his musical dream team would return the compliment by contributing to the finished tracks. The final 11-song opus features a lengthy and refreshingly incongruous cast of guests. Exclusive vinyl picture disc edition."

Artist:	MAN'SBESTFRIEND
Title:	Poly.sci.187
Label:	ANTICON
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	ABR 073CD

"While past Mansbestfriend projects dwell in a glorious sort of doom, Poly.sci.187 plays ethereal and heavy like a series of ghost dreams drifting through thick Arizona air. The title reads as the foregone conclusion of Sole's notable ventures, both philosophical and literal, into a world of human strife and dirty politics: 'Political Science: This Shit'll Kill You.' But without true lyrical content, the instrumental Poly.sci.187 occupies a space more reflective than edifying, its songs positing suggestion and sentiment in the mind of the listener about our most current troubled times. It's political done subtle, and the songs of Mansbestfriend adopt a similar bent, often ending on question marks or drifting out of frame. True, hip-hop's collagist tendencies are present here, but the songs are freeform -- ambient, heavily textured soundscapes that ride a beat out just as easily as they derail it in favor of new ground."

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