Tracks or Albums That Don't Sound Quite Like Anything Else

[night_shade]

One of my favorite things about digging through Troy era music is you'll occasionally come across a "new" kind of sound that arose for a moment but was never really taken up and fully explored. For me this creates the sense that, like the present, the past is full of "possibilities". Here are some tracks that have always seemed to me like little islands of sound in Troy era Hip Hop, a little remote from everything else. I should mention that I tend to lean towards the darker stuff.

First there's McGruff's Harlem Kids Get Biz. There are some strange elements here: McGruff's unique flamboyant style, the eerie vibraphone (?) sample, the distorted singing on the chorus, the snare that sounds like someone smashing the lid of a trash can in an ally somewhere, I've never heard anything else quite like it. This is one of those dark 90's gems I never get tired of listening to. I should mention that the album version of this track is different and not as raw in my opinion. Spunk Bigga is credited as the producer, do we know anything about this dude?



Also, so long as we're on McGruff I've always found the I Keep My Palm on the Handle Remix from his Demo EP really interesting musically. Listen to that beat! It's all over the place.



So now we have Nine's We Play 4 Keeps, my favorite track off of Cloud Nine. Nine's style is pretty inimitable, and the production here is unusual too, with the.hard hitting drums and the sparse classical sample. A good chunk of Cloud 9 sounds like this, all of which was produced by Rob Lewis, and I've never really heard the sound duplicated anywhere else. Some of Nine Livez is pretty unusual too, but I think that album managed to influence people whereas Cloud 9 didn't seem to get much attention and is sort of a dead end in terms of the particular sound it created.



Moving onto to Boogiemonster's album Riders of the Storm. This whole record is "Strange", the production has elements of G-Funk, weird muddy bass, tons of phasing and a general dissonance that's hard to really put your finger on...and the vocals also have all sorts of effects applied to them, the lyrics are conventional in places but often abstract and dream-like...I guess I'd call this a “psychedelic” rap album, but even that's not quite right. The “normal” tracks are themselves weird, which makes tracks like Old Man Jacob's Well and Mark Of the Beast otherworldly. I've never heard anything else even remotely like this album, it's like it was made on another planet. I was really disappointed by their sophomore album, all except for "The Beginning of the End".




Kind of a strange start, but that's all for now. What are some tracks/albums that sound different to you?

[vaporized2]

Boxcar Sessions...

edit. Blowout Comb, to a lesser extent

[night_shade]

Good call with Boxcar Sessions, nobody rocks it like Saafir and the production on that album is straight up madness...sometimes it's a bit much for me though, it reminds me of listening to free jazz or something.

Light Sleeper might be one of my favorite tracks in Hip Hop though, nothing else quite like it really.

[shadowmaster]

The Iron Sheiks EP had some unique beats, had a pretty distinct sound to them. There's others I'm not thinking of now but those came to mind. I remember seeing some artwork in the Source for that Iron Sheiks material which I never saw again. The image was quite small, too.

[fatboybrandon]

Nice choices night-shade. I always felt like the sound Marley and K-Def introduced for Real live on Come Take A Ride was something stuck in it's time and never really explored further, especially due to the shelving of the album.

Dr. Octagon is another, one of the reasons why the album stands out so much is the weird production sound which incorporates elements of horror and dark morbid sounds. The sound was so original to Keith's persona that not many wanted to or could emulate it.

[night_shade]

Word, the production on the World Renown LP is gorgeous and yeah, distinctive.

And yeah, there's only one Kool Keith. Blue Flowers was always my favorite Dr. Octagon track.

I've posted about these guys before but I don't think anyone sounds quite like Black Anger from Seattle. This track is particularly unusual:



What a crazy ass beat, I'm not even really sure how to describe it. This too:



The Nonce definitely have a distinctive sound, as do the other Goodlife people (Freestyle Fellowship etc), though I don't really know their catalog very well.

Would love to hear more stuff like this:






Oh, and I don't like most of their stuff but nobody else sounds like Psycho Realm, and they have a few dope tracks. Stone Garden is a small classic in my opinion.

[night_shade]

And co-sign the Iron Sheiks EP, unique release, I've always dug "Alluminati".

[night_shade]

This track has always stood out to me as well, I was surprised when they played it on The Wire (Why they neglected to play any Baltimore Hip Hop is beyond me).



Some driving at night with the windows down type shit.

[vaporized2]

Good call with Boxcar Sessions, nobody rocks it like Saafir and the production on that album is straight up madness...sometimes it's a bit much for me though, it reminds me of listening to free jazz or something.

If what I read is correct the beats are actually less mad than they should be because they had to remove a whole bunch of extra samples/scratches they couldn't get clearance for.

The Nonce definitely have a distinctive sound, as do the other Goodlife people (Freestyle Fellowship etc), though I don't really know their catalog very well.

This guy has a couple of Mixes of Nonce material worth checking. (stream only)
https://soundcloud.com/bachirmixtape

[I Smell Like Un Kasa]

First thing that came to mind was Divine Styler's 2nd and 3rd albums. Spiral Walls Containing Autumns Of Light ‎& Wordpower 2: Directrix.

[night_shade]

My first time hearing Divine Styler...that 1992 album sounds like late sixties early seventees psychedelic rock with rapping...mixed with some funk. Definitely unique.

This track is nuts!



Found this link:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/gktb7 ... 991%29.zip

[night_shade]

Some styles/sounds I'd like to see developed further:

Exmen - Life Aint Nothin But A Dream



Deep In Da Circle - Stardom (Remix)



Double Action - Shaolin Style



Love that beat on Shaolin Style, there's something hypnotic about it.

[night_shade]

Good call with Boxcar Sessions, nobody rocks it like Saafir and the production on that album is straight up madness...sometimes it's a bit much for me though, it reminds me of listening to free jazz or something.

If what I read is correct the beats are actually less mad than they should be because they had to remove a whole bunch of extra samples/scratches they couldn't get clearance for.

The Nonce definitely have a distinctive sound, as do the other Goodlife people (Freestyle Fellowship etc), though I don't really know their catalog very well.

This guy has a couple of Mixes of Nonce material worth checking. (stream only)
https://soundcloud.com/bachirmixtape

Would love to hear the earlier Boxcar Sessions mix...I wonder if any of it was saved?

Props for the Nonce mixtapes.

[vaporized2]

Double Action - Shaolin Style



Love that beat on Shaolin Style, there's something hypnotic about it.

Feeling that one. Never heard it before. Beat reminds me of Take It Back off Wu's 8 Diagrams

If we're talking individual tracks, the way the sample pans from left to right on this punk barbarians track is something I've not heard in any other track and it sounds crazy imo. probably didnt need to be done on any more tracks cause it would turn into a gimmick. only notice it on headphones obviously.



::shitty youtube audio warning

[night_shade]

Dope track, I've actually picked up that album again recently.

Honeydips in Gotham has some very heavy phasing:

[night_shade]

(duplicate)

[night_shade]

I love this track, I've listened to it regularly ever since I first heard it. Slee'stackz got into a very interesting sound here, nothing else they did touches this.



I've always dug this track too, also pretty different.



In fact a lot of the production on Behind the Iron Curtain is pretty unique, dark and muddy, my kind of sound.

[ZiekeFons]

1628 factor - Speak my piece


Rubberroom - Stylewars


Brand nubian - Slow down, Frankenstein remix


Del the funky homosapien - Press rewind

[night_shade]

Nice selections, that Rubberroom track is nuts.

The 1628 joint reminds me a bit of this:

[night_shade]

[night_shade]

^Love the beat on the Illegal remix, way more interesting than the original.

I've always thought Mannish had a very original sound.



^Listen to those horns on the chorus!

"Jive U The Man" is a little different from everything else they put out. Just saw there's a video, here it is. It starts out with "Mannish", Jive comes in 30 seconds in.

[Architek]

Rubberoom indeed. Their production duo (The Opus) was straight fire once.



New Jersey based Dalek is a rarely (never?) mentioned MC/group. These guys stretched boom bap in a seriously unique way.

They peaked in 2005 though.

WordSound (and the Black Hoodz sub-label) gathered a lot of weirdness.

[Huldrich Bullsh!t]

Some styles/sounds I'd like to see developed further:

Deep In Da Circle - Stardom (Remix)

that track is very nice. have never heard of this crew but iknow the sample. anyone knows who else sampled this? i know i have heard it before. im thinking Gurus voice but i can't pin it down


cosign divine styler as something really completely different

this beat always stood out to me as something unique. extremely strange samples or maybe its all synths not sure


and his other track aswell actually


of course this whole album. i don't like every track but this song is beyond ill and so fucking strange


of course it is a canonical rap song but stilkl applies to this thread. as a duo they tried to replicate this song a few times never really got there.

[Huldrich Bullsh!t]

also this beat is like nothing I have ever heard but its not TROY material

[djpos2?!]

Always thought Da Bush Babees "ambushed" lp was very very different sounding and I really dug it. Those cats were crazy fresh & had crazy style. They seem to calm down a little more on Gravity, I prefer the Ambushed style though. I remember the tape was Blue, cover was sick, videos onpoint, mister man was killin it... Plus the production just sounded different than everything else. Has that Fugees translator crew vibe to it but instead it was actually dope.

[ZiekeFons]

Aceyalone - I Think I Know Too Much

[night_shade]

^I'm gonna give Ambushed a relisten today.



^That whole album is pretty unique. Brother J reminds me a bit of the dude from Jurassic 5.



^Putting the Dark Sun Riders album on reminded me of Darc Mind, who has one of the strangest and most distinctive flows I've ever heard. I regard "Outside Looking In" as kind of a minor masterpiece, both Darc Mind and Nick Wiz at their best.

This isn't mind blowing or anything, but I've always thought the production on this track had an interesting vibe to it, dark and somewhat monotonous. The chimes or whatever they are on the chorus give me chills.



Also, someone posted this in the Depressing/Introspective songs thread which reminded me of it, "Much Love" from Ghetto Concept maybe one of the most haunting beats I've ever heard. It's always stood out to me, especially against other Ghetto Concept releases.



Another interesting beat, discovered this in one of Bad Cop's compilations. What is that weird stringed instrument that comes in periodically? Sounds vaguely middle eastern.

[vaporized2]

is there scope for a TROY comp here? would be interesting. Depends how many people have decent mp3s of what's been posted. Youtube rips are a no-no, this place is too classy for that

[Architek]

^good idea.
It would be interesting to hear from the DJ's about tracks they really dig but have always been a pain in the ass when it comes to mixing for a mixtape 'cause they just don't fit anywhere. I mean this is essentially an alternate view to the same topic.

[Architek]

I don't know what kind of noise has been used here but the result is surprisingly good. One of the very few JR Ewing productions, if i'm not mistaken (Discogs doesn't give him credit but i'm pretty sure he was involved):



also,