There’s no such thing as an album that’s a perfect 10 – but there those that are one notch below. The 9’s is an occasional series which explores some of those records.
Released: 2001
About
It’s an odd paradox, but in retrospect the era before the age of internet absolutism was the last in which the human race would experience true freedom. As a case in point, cLOUDDEAD were able in the guttering lights of a twentieth century many miss to grow like bacteria in their Ohio petridish, fomenting a sound that warped hip-hop into dozens of expressionist gobbets, threading it with ambient drones, psychedelia, prog, found sounds and phantom beats. Releasing these mind expanding tablets of drone on a series of loosely themed 10-inch EPs, the trio consisting of Doseone, why? and Odd Nosdam eventually relocated to Los Angeles, where the latter formed the Anticon label, and the strange fruits of their combined labours were reissued as an all killer, all killer compilation.
Why a 9?
Famously difficult to explain descriptively, it’s easier to say what cLOUDDEAD isn’t, which would be being the results of an orthodox attempt at making a weird rap album. Anybody coming at it from that angle would’ve failed miserably to create the surreal atmospheres and unique sonic framework the trio hatched seemingly almost by accident. There are some obvious higher profile touchpoints – DJ Shadow, Company Flow, Boards of Canada, Cypress Hill – but this product of a lower tech and less filter oriented culture remains quarter of a century completely unique and distinct.
Why Is It Important
To be clear, in the schismatical late twentieth century war for hip-hop’s soul at release this record was as far away from the frontline as can be imagined. Not unlike however the long maturation taste curve that eventually resulted in Slint’s Spiderland being hailed as a generational classic, the spores of cLOUDDEAD’s reputational values dispersed through the genre’s landscape, before they could be found explicitly in seminal future works like Flying Lotus’ Los Angeles, Mad Libs’ Madvillainy and J Dilla’s Donuts.
You Should Listen To
Apt. A (2), I Promise Never To Get Paint On My Glasses Again (1), And All You Can Do Is Laugh (2), Bike (1)
The Voice Of Unreason 