The Oldominion crew prides itself in being an entity unto themselves. Comprised of more than two dozen members (rappers, producers, artists, singers, etc), the crew has been responsible for countless releases. And over its ten year history a number of the folks at one time associated with the northwest based collective have gone on to make a national name for themselves – the Boom Bap Project for example. But for the most part, Oldominion folks haven’t found a huge audience. Each maintains that the reason for the group’s difficulty making it big is based upon the fact that everything from their raps to the production that accompanies it all is too far removed from radio rap to create any sort of wide spread fan base.

Further down the west coast, in Oakland, though, Anticon continues to expand not just their aural palette, but their release schedule and popularity. It’s unfair to simply figure that lack of renown is due to being wacky – and truth be told, there’s nothing that I’ve run into from Oldominion that gets anywhere near the odditiy of Themselves. But a lot of the production – courtesy of Nickels (Jackson Johnson) on this Comunalien disc - is a bit too eerie for any sort of air play to be contemplated. And when that fact is compounded by the Jesus-centric raps of the late Reuben Antonio Paulson, there’s not going to be a huge slice of the open market that’s gonna be dedicated to this music.

In first tossing on Comunique, a clutch of tracks recorded late in the ‘90s prior to the death of Paulson, listeners are given a pretty spaced out beat that’s focused on a subtle flute loop over top of an all too sinister drum pattern. Paulson’s flow on “Endor,” while not only an octave deeper than most every other emcee on the mic – apart from Chali Tuna – goes into problematic time constructs. It’s not ’92 (it was apparently ’96, which makes this all the more impressive) and the emcee wonders why folks are looking towards an antiquated form of the genre to create new music. It’s a valid question. But once he gets into reasons as to why folks might have a distaste for Jesus, it gets to be too much.

I never thought about the crew as an overtly religious one – this group perhaps being the most vociferous in its praise. But in an interview Onry Ozzborn figures, “He made it cool to talk about God,” in reference to Paulson. And while that’s a surprising statement to come out of the mouth of a dude who assumingly plays shows where beer and smoke are as prevalent as ticket holders, listening to Comunique makes one think that these guys were able to properly balance temptation and whatever religious fervor they carried around. Again, this isn’t going to please the hardcore dudes who are more into time pieces than peace, but everything represented on this posthumous release was created with a great deal of forethought and care – just not for the charts.