Object Beings: Awhatnow?

BeingsEveryone likes collectible stuff. It doesn't seem that Anticon has more of a soft spot in its collective heart for the limited edition releases that some other indie labels do, but the lone release from Object Beings - a self titled affair - hit the ground with a lowly two hundred copies in existence. So that fact that anyone was able to hear this is pretty surprising. But thanks to the innernuts as well as the dudes over at the Beat Box Radio Show, now, we can listen.

Some groups - like cLOUDDEAD and others - have some sort of liberal idea as to what a group actually is. But Anticon, as much as any other outlet, works with this loosely conceived idea and releases disc after disc of left field stylee rap discs. Of course, some of the work that's related to the label - I'm thinking specifically of Subtle - really has nothing to do with the sweet boom bap, but instead traffics in some indie dregs.

The common thread through most of these projects, though, is the nasally Dose One. Hailing from the Midwest, the emcee turned semi-crooner has as intricate and unique a flow as some combination between Busdriver and B Real. That's probably not fair to any of the three rappers here, but it makes a bit of sense when the tone of B Real is coupled with the nonstop syllable assault of the BD. But amidst releasing work under a spate of auspices, 2001 found Dose One paired with Pedestrian and Yoni Wolf from Why?.

At first glance, it doesn't seem like all too much of a stretch for these folks to work together. But when one figures the predilection that Dose and Yoni have for rock tropes, Pedestrian might be thought to be left out in the cold. Not so.

The self titled disc doesn't have any tremendously apparent theoretic bent - although the indulgent song titles and the penchant for the collective to be cerebral might point to another hypothesis. This release almost seems like a companion piece to the cLOUDDEAD's 2001 album. They aren't identical, but the combination of Dose's flow and some weirdo productions mark ample similarities.

The fact, though, that the Object Beings disc was released in such a small run is pretty surprising, though. At this point in time that first cLOUDDEAD disc is pretty well thought of and sought after - I've got a copy. So the limited supply of some more bizarro rap from the crew almost doesn't make sense.

The disc, though, does run a scant twenty five minutes - so maybe this only counts as an EP. But regardless of that fact, the production represented moves between what Anticon was initially known for while still being able to hint at what was in store for the collective. There aren't blatant checks on Subtle here, but in some of the more ambient passages, one must wonder whether or not the seeds of that all too popular group were laid here.