Fluorescent Black

Anti-Pop Consortium | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 29, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Big Dada Records
• ASIN: B002GYS1EU
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,301 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Lay Me Down

2. New Jack Exterminator

3. Reflections

4. Shine

5. C Thru U

6. Volcano

7. Timpani

8. The Solution

9. Get Lite

10. NY to Tokyo

11. Superunfrontable

12. Born Electric

13. Apparently

14. End Game

15. Capricorn One

16. Dragunov

17. Fluorescent Black

Editorial Reviews

Hip hop pioneers, ANTI-POP CONSORTIUM, will return with their first album in six years on BIG DADA (ROOTS MANUVA, SPEECH DEBELLE, SPANK ROCK). Entitled 'Fluorescent Black', the album reunites legendary emcees Beans, M. Sayyid, Earl Blaize, and High Priest in a startling display of lyrical dexterity and sonic experimentation. Initially taking the game by surprise with their acclaimed 2000 debut, 'Tragic Epilogue', Anti-Pop Consortium quickly made a name for themselves - alongside contemporaries EL-P, CANNIBAL OX, AESOP ROCK, BUCK 65, and SOLE - as some of the brightest stars in the burgeoning indie hip-hop scene. With 'Shopping Carts Crashing' (2000) and 'Arrhythmia' (2002 on WARP), they cemented their status as the genre's premiere boundary pushers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars APC is back! (but something's missing...), October 15, 2009

By 

Catfood03 (in front of my computer typing reviews) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fluorescent Black (Audio CD)

...first of all there are two fewer songs on the CD version of this release than the mp3 version, "Polar Bear Digital" and "New Frontier". At the time of my purchase I did not check the tracklist to see it was different than the mp3 album. I want to make sure all consumers know what's on what before you decide what format to buy. (I don't see any reason for this, there is plenty of room on the CD to hold these songs, unless it is to actively discourage the sales of the CD format.)

There are only a small handful of rap artists that I truly enjoy and Anti-Pop is chief among them. When I first heard news that the guys were back together again for their first new material in seven years I asked myself this: Does a Anti-Pop reunion really matter anymore? The short answer is "Yes". The avant/IDM/underground rap scene that APC held the flag highest for has still not broken into the mainstream, so it leaves our heroes once again sounding like hungry underdogs. And all the better for it.

The three MCs that comprise Anti-Pop (Beans, M. Sayyid, and High Priest) have each either released solo material or teamed with one another to keep themselves active in music. While I felt the three individuals were doing acceptable to outstanding work as solo artists, it sounds so nice to the ears to hear their individual voices once again on the same record, delivering mind-bending rhymes over futuristic beats.

My main criticism is that, while the songs themselves are as imaginative as ever, the environment in which they reside sounds a bit too bright and clean for my liking. Some of APC's best work in the past retained a bit of a rough sonic edge to it. I'm thinking of tracks like "Dead In Motion", "Vector" and "Basix". There is also a noticeable absence of the kind of odd sound effects like in the past. No tracks built on ping-pong matches, no sounds of shopping carts crashing, and no "Monster Sex". And while it's great to hear the three guys again on the same record I was hoping to hear at least a couple of the crazy instrumentals APC had on past recordings. Every track on Fluorescent Black has vocals.

So, is Fluorescent Black a good record? Absolutely. APC loves to throw curveballs in their recordings, that's immediately apparent when the listener pushes the play button on the first track. The mid-section of the CD is where Fluorescent Black really hits it's stride, with "The Solution" (High Priest's best moment here), "Get Lite", and the new-wave bounce of "NY to Tokyo". Beans dominates on the short, intense burst of "Dragunov" the same way he shone on guest spots on recent recordings by Prefuse 73 and Dabrye. Best of all is the title track, which perfectly captures everything great about APC in one 5 minute song.

A welcome return. I hope that these guys push the boundaries out even further for the next round.

FINAL RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars what's preventing me from giving this 5 stars?, March 16, 2010

By 

James Frank "Wet Dentist" (Bethlehem, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fluorescent Black (Audio CD)

the answer is "i don't know". i can't stop listening to this record (and i mean record, i.e. double vinyl) and yet i can't give it that extra star, and yet apparently i can't stop listening to this record. i think i could listen to "superunfrontable" forever. i've been a fan of these guys since '02 and saw them live in Philly like a month before they "broke up". so so happy Chuck D got them back together again. they are still pushing their own boundaries

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A few missteps, March 10, 2010

By 

Jason Harrington "Trucker Hater Magazine" (Little Rock, AR) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fluorescent Black (Audio CD)

I give this four starts out of my personal taste, but for most indie-rap heads it probably would rank closer to three. The production is consistently dynamic, with a lot less fooling-around than we have come to expect (IE: no skits or spoken word type stuff). Beans sounds like he freestyled all of his parts and he could have done much better, but I guess he has begun to fall back on a lot of lyrical rap cliches these days. Every line by Beans uses one of these terms: emcee, hip hop, freestyle, rhyme, rap, etc...instead of being dominated bymore colorful and imaginative images like other space rap from Kool Keith or Deltron.

So, some of their ideas on this disc will not sit well with everyone, because they are an awkward and experimental crew. However, the album is dense like poundcake with a ton of songs, so it's worth the price to get it and just filter out your personal distaste on your MP3 player. This is still among their best work. My personal fav from this crew though is Beans Shock City Maverick, but get all their stuff...they always have a few gems between the missteps.