Customer Reviews

Circle

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Boom Bip (on production) and Doseone (MCing) come with some of the most abstract stuff I've ever heard.
With strange lyrics delivered the way only Doseone can deliver.
And if you are familiar with Doseone, you know that he has a strange delivery/style.
And beats on this album are so strange you'll think you drank some electric koolaide trip juice.
Ambient sounds, bongos, and other tripped-out weirdness.

Seriously. This is very strange. To put it lightly.
I wouldn't recommend it for the average listener, probably not for even the average underground listener.

The 1st time I listened to it, I couldn't even make it all the way through. But like most things, repeated use may become addictive.

this album is one of the most experimental albums i have ever heard. it goes everywhere from metal, hip-hop, 80s and jazzy beats to soft lofty ambient textures. dose one does an incredible job with the the lyrics taking the listener on a journey that ends exactly where it begins, thus creating a perfect "circle". boom bip provides the beats and music back drop making your head spin from tight production. this album was listed in new york times arts section as one of the albums people should not have missed in the year 2000. i see why. the music is not for the faint at heart though, but for those in search of something different, challenging and stimulating. if you can listen to kool keith and radiohead on the same night, than this album is for you.

I'd first found Doseone in the dollar bin at the local shop in the form of Clouddead. Needless to say, it was the best dollar I had ever spent. Over the next few weeks, my musical mission would be to explore every creepy, abstract corner of Doseone's world. I stumbled upon Circle shortly thereafter. Mission Accomplished.

Upon first listen, I was transplanted to a dreamy, eerie place straddling the line of genius and pure insanity. If you've ever heard Doseone before, you may know generally what to expect. On Circle, he is at the peak of his pretentious, nasal, certifiable self. Complimenting him here is Boom Bip, who has somehow managed to create the perfect backdrop for Dose's often incomprehensible ranting. (Thankfully, they've included liner notes)

This album will surely confuse, confound and bewilder even the most weathered "abstract-hop" listener. Just pay attention, hang on and enjoy your journey.

Boom Bip & Doseone - "Circle" (Experimental Hip-Hop, Underground Rap, Social Commentary, Progressive Hip-Hop, Avant Garde) : Where to being with this one???...its so unlike anything else, that it's occasionally difficult to describe it.....'Boom Bip' cuts, Samples and mixes tracks, loops, conceptual beats...epic production that's sometimes: dense, expressive, ambitious, elaborate....(not unlike DJ Shadow, but unquestionably more inventive), and pairs his exemplary beats & sounds (which can be anything from: phones ringing, Vocal samples, atmospheric sounds)...with vocalist "Doseone". Who literally is a Hop-hop equivalent of the children's books favourite 'Dr Seuss' (the cat in the hat).....Doseone (Who sounds very similar to Cypress hills main frontman/singer) outputs vast amounts of information....virtually reams of thought process, be it via quick fire delivery, or carefully considered theorectising about 100's of subjects.....sometimes painfully concise, and other times impossibly incoherent.....every question answered, only presents more questions...throwing solutions / conundrums at the same time....such as 'Do you want to meet him on his own terms??'...if Yes....'Why would you want to??'.....and so forth, twisting and manipulating the listeners perceptions, of whether he truly is a lyrical genius by making observations far beyond the confines of Hip-Hop, but then shattering your conclusions, by saying "I'm making this up, as I'm going along".....nothing is conventional....nothing is guaranteed. One minute it launches into a shifting sonic texture atmospheric, reminiscent of 'DJ Shadow' in his "Endtroducing" days, but then turns the tables completely on its head, but playing out a slightly nonsensical 5 minute conversation between 2 people, that you've been inadvertently been made privy to.

Starting ambient Hip-Hop tracks one minute that are gloriously downbeat, and stretching the confines of hazy cut & paste techniques, sounding for want of a better word, an instrumental track (of which there are several), and the next minute launching furiously fast D'n'B style breaks, with Doseone feverishly managing the outpace the beats....via indecipherable scrambled wordplay. Curiously there is no bad language contained (expect for one word later on in the album), so it can't possibly be lumped in with 'aggressive Hip-Hop', and the dialogue is to obscure & abstract to be 'Intelligent Rap', the breaks & beats veer wildly from sublime ambient, to high BPM speeds in the drop of a hat, and don't work as either 'Chilled' or 'Club' tracks.....and it's clearly requires too much investment to play to a group of friends (at 29 tracks long, it's well over an hour)....yet it so unlike anything else out there, that your curious as to other peoples perceptions of its content...but because it's virtually impossible to take it all in....in one sitting, it's probably suited to personal listening.

I'll end by saying, although its quite possibly, one of the best things I've listened to this year, its nonconformity means that I can't recommend it to most people, but those craving something different, some unusual, and (dare I say it?) something new.....at the very least owe it to themselves to at least give it several plays (bearing in mind that not only will the majority of the album will be impenetrable first time around, and this requires the listeners full attention....no sticking this album on as background music), dare I say...that I've yet to find a more substantial Experiential Hip-Hop album thus far???

I love Boom Bip. I love Doseone even more. Its hard to know where to start with circle. If you like dosone, I would highly reccommend this release. He is stranger than he has ever been. The third track, Square, is where you see it first. This song reminds me alot of sir mixalots "I like big butts" song (Which I Hate) but when I heard Square, I laughed my ass off. I listened to it over and over again. It still hasnt lost its appeal. Other songs hes plain up strange with refrences to religion. In "questions over coffee" He's asking himself questions. "Question 1: Jesus wasnt a carpenter, he was a gardener" Later he revisits que 1 and says "Jesus didnt cut the grass, he just got all melodramatic and moderific & sat in it, and dont tell anyone but I'm making this whole thing up as I go along, and it feels GOOD"

Another song, Me and Peoples, he starts with "So me and jesus, go out to dinner one night, and everyone starts nailing themselves to things, kinda, trying to impress him, ya know? even my freinds, and the waiters. I was SO embarassed" Its hard to explain this album, but I think its witty, hilarious, all of the above. I would strongly suggest buying it.

you've probably heard this term before: this is hiphop for people who hate hiphop. my father listens to this at work.
this album was created by two men, Boom bip and Doseone (duh). although I believe both doseone and boombip were credited for the production, it is quite obviously boombip on the tracks and dose with the vocals. although, doseone deals exclusivly in extremly abstract poetry/rhymes (raps, whatever), his poetry also tends to be pretty personal. this is doseone with both his most personal lines and baffling ones. also, this is boombip like you've never heard him before. bird sounds, ambience, tape noise, etc. Also, the song 'ironish' will send 'rapmetal' or 'rapcore' fans running for the hills. strangelines are littered throughout this album.

"so... jesus & i... go out to dinner... and everyone keeps nailing themselves to things... kinda trying to impress him... ya know... like even the waiters and my friends even... i was so embarrassed for us all."

"sometimes i read slower than slugs,
not that a slug can read by any means
but sometimes i read six lines at a time."

this album is about childhood. its about adulthood. its about what goes on in doseone's brain. now you just have to figure it all out.

I can't truly rate this CD yet, after
the second casual listening, I can tell
it will take several to fully digest.

Boom Bip provides solid music to back
Doseone's vocals. The music is of high
quality. Doseone's lyrics are intruiging,
deep and meaningful.

What will take this so long to digest is
that he speaks so fast sometimes you can
not decipher what he's saying and
comprehend the meaning behind it at the
same time. All good.

Some tracks are nothing more than Doseone

rambling overtop of the backdrop sounds of
a city. His flow is at times precise, and
at others seemingly about to fall out of
it's structure into rambling, but he
manages to keep it all together. Several
times he begins to speak poetically rather
than actually flowing... but it sounds
good.

I can't wait to read the lyrics on the
inside cover. And to get Boom Bip's solo
album.

Vurry nice - this could be considered
a CD more suited towards personal
listening. But that's a personal
opinion, and from a twotime casual
listening. Def worth the purchase.
Especially if you like music that
makes people go "You're weird"

Well folks, for all those out there who are fans of intelligent music check this stuff. Where contemporary hiphop is often a commercial shallow thing, stereotype and ridiculous, Boom bip & Doseone bring you something completely different. First of all this is a sound you've never heard. As if avant-garde soundtrack is mingled with beautiful breakbeats and rap. The songs have long intro's with intelligent made soundscapes and DJ work. The lyrics are dazzling, hypnotic and poetic. Just check it.

Circle is undoubtedly Dose's most abstract work to date, which is saying a lot for this most masterful of conceptual lyricists. As most of the other reviewers note, it is very difficult, if not at all impossible, to convey just how absurd this work is. Dose unleashes a fusillade of archaic witticisms, except for on the occasional Boom Bip instrumental. He sounds like a mad 19th-Century british ornithologist on some kind of preposterous stakeout. Believe me, this album makes even less sense the more you listen to it, and this is not at all a bad thing. Circle employs some starkly original production, and the atmosphere is constantly varied so it never becomes soporific in spite of its weirdness.

Doseone and Boom Bip team up for Circle, which sees them both pushing hip-hop to its limits. Doseone's lyrics, both nonsensical and mellifluous, becomes another texture for Boom Bip to work with. So "Dead Man's Teal" has the quiet, loping quality of a Clouddead track. Most of the tracks are merely suggestions -- skits and ambient interludes -- but when they get down to business, they get down: the dark thrums and ridiculous questions of "Questions Over Coffee"; the spare, martial beat of "Ironish"; the animal howls and spookiness of "The Birdcatcher's Return"; or the pure creepiness of "Gin"; the dreaminess of "The Birdcatcher's Oath." But the instrumentals are just as good: "The Lantern" has an eerie cast to it, run through with squalls of feedback, while "Town Crier's Walk" has a bit of a growl before it blips into some 80s electro. It's a strange album, one that draws you in and hooks you, even if you don't quite understand what's going on.