Customer Reviews

I'll Sleep When You're Dead

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I keep reading that El-P has eased up on the carpet bombing production techniques and started using melody. That he has slowed down his flow and let his tracks breathe a little more on his new album. Now that I finally got my grubby little hands on El's new album I'll Sleep When Your Dead, I've found that there is more melody, he has slowed down his flow, and his tracks do breathe a little more (I stress a little more).

So all these things should make for a more accessible listening experience right? Well it's not. ISWYD is arguably less accessible than his 2002 debut Fantastic Damage. When you listen to Fantastic Damage for the first time, it's possible to be completely overwhelmed by the virtuoso complexity of the whole thing. The beats are abrasive and noisy, and the lyrics are almost indecipherable without a written copy in front of you. But on Fantastic Damage, the beats, though abrasive and noisy, are very immediate. You can nod your head along with most of the songs. On ISWYD, the beats are generally more noisy and chaotic. It's hard to really pick something out that's at all catchy, at least on the first listen.

This is one of those albums that you have to let marinate. After a few listens you start to hear the hook on Run the Numbers, and you start to realize that the drum line on EMG is pretty great. On first listen, the opener Tasmanian Pain Coaster is a frustrating experience. There is really nothing approaching conventional hip hop on the close to 7 minute track. But then you bust out the lyric sheet and read along with the song. You realize what the songs about, and then you begin to hear all the layers of production. ISWYD is one of those onion albums, the more you listen to it the more layers you peel off.

Production wise, El-P continues to evolve. Though he has a recognizable style, he changes his approach slightly for the performer he is working with. He uses heavy, slow urban beats for Cannibal Ox, or fuzzy and hard beats for Mr. Lif. On this album, his production suits the dark tone of the album. The songs are mainly about social commentary and are a critique of the government and society, so the beats are heavy, sludgy and noisy, fitting the tone of the lyrics.

As an MC, El-P has always been technically great, but a little obtuse. On this album his delivery is a bit more measured, actually rapping with the beat instead of overpowering the beat. He has also improved as a storyteller. Just listen to him describe meeting a friend who he hasn't seen in a while on the opening track and noticing that he has blood on his laces.

So nothing has really changed for El-P. The sound is slightly different, but he's still concerned with paranoia and social critiques. His work is still complex and difficult, but with repeated listening it can be very rewarding. This is easily the best rap album of the year so far, and it's really not even close.

At first, "Sleep When..." sounds like El-P's furthest departure yet from the independent hip-hop he championed and pioneered with Company Flow.

Tracks with the Mars Volta? Cat Power? Trent REZNOR?!

But then the beat drops on 'Tasmanian Pain Coaster,' and you realize it's just El peeling the next corroded layer off the post-apocalyptic production style of which he is the true master.

To be sure, there are a few moments of what you might call Def-Jux-By-Numbers here and there, but most of the time, 'Sleep When...' hits like a 50-megaton bomb... and sounds like one, too.

Where his steez on Cannibal Ox's 'Cold Vein' was a futuristic grime rooted firmly in the street, this new disc is almost the opposite: street grime beamed aboard an alien battlecruiser, firing blasts at a burnt-out New York City. But instead of sounding all sci-fi-paranoid, as he did on 'Fantastic Damage,' 'Sleep When...' finds El hitting several different modes, from the Bush-bashing 'Dear Sirs,' performed in a free-poem, 7-beat measure to an out-and-out love story (on a spaceship, natch) in 'Habeas Corpses.'

The opener ('Tasmanian...') embodies everything that's great about this album: dense layers of rusty noise flying off in all directions, grounded by a beat that wouldn't sound out of place on an early Run DMC record, punctuated by El's conscious streaming. To be sure, his flow is an acquired taste, but heads who say it's garbage or that it doesn't rhyme...? Stick with Lil' Jon, then...

'Up All Night' is the best beat of 2007 so far, in my book, 'Drive' is a dark ride in a dirty jalopy, and 'EMG' is some evil-nasty-funk with some of the best wordplay on the album.

I'm not sold on 'Flyentology,' and I have to agree with another reviewer that Reznor's vocals are kinda corny; you'd think the NIN collabo would be some of the darkest s*** on the album, but no.

To be honest, I'd liked to have seen more hip-hop guests (I'd LOVE to hear Vast Aire rip the beats on 'Tasmanian' and 'Drive'), but this is definitely one of the densest, heaviest hip-hop albums to come out of late. Does it take a listen or two to digest it all? Yup. Is it worth the time? No doubt.

El-P has done it again. He has invented a world of sound that transports you to a place in his mind; a vision of the decaying city. The cacophonous sound, mechanical samples, and grimy beats combine to create a dark symphony. His signature layered production, including building harmonic background chords, head-nodding break beats, and phaser beam samples will leave you twitching.

If you love radio rap, you may not dig this album. But if you know and love El-P, are interested in raw, independent, ground-breaking hip-hop, than this album will grow on you with each listen.

The opening track is priceless. It builds to several levels, delivering more musical loveliness in seven minutes than most artists deliver in their entire careers. The first section sets the tone for the rest of the album; the second section gets you to sing along the chanted chorus, "This is the sound of what you don't know killing you." The final section softens somewhat and resolves with a hot little guitar hook with matching hi-pitch vocals.

Check out track 5 (Drive). Its got a sickeningly catchy hook that reminds me of the Cannibal Ox song "Painkillers."

Flyentology is hot too. The sound paints a scene out of a futuristic assembly line in some crazy mind factory. Trent Reznor is featured doing background vocals. Also featured on the album are Aesop Rock and Cage.

If you like Def Jux, Cannibal Ox's Cold Vein, El-P's Fantastic Damage, or Aesop Rock's Bazooka Tooth, than this album will blow you away. If you don't know those albums, buy them up, they're hot!!!

Fantastic Damage is a timeless album. Whether you bought it when it first came out, picked it up a week ago, or intend on buying it in 5 years, it will ALWAYS be ahead of its time. So how does El-Producto do it? By "it" I mean composing challenging yet enjoyable music, maintaining his essence, and staying connected to the hip-hop community at large... I don't know, but this guy has done the hip-hop equivalent of inventing the wheel - twice.

Yeah it took some time, but "I'll Sleep When You're Dead" is another timeless album, and I dare say my favorite thing to come out of the Def. Jux camp (Yes, including Labor Days). What's unbelievable is how different this album is from Fantastic Damage - and yet, it still has El-P's signature sound all over it. This album is the quintessential example of how an artist can go in a different direction, but still create amazing and memorable music.

I dislike 95% of commercial rap and I'm extremely thankful for El-P, Mr. Lif, Aesop, Can. Ox, Rob Sonic, etc. keeping hip-hop cerebral and real. El-P set the bar with "Fantastic Damage", and now he has raised it with "I'll Sleep When You're Dead."

Without checking the time on iTunes, I initially thought "I'll Sleep When You're Dead" was under 30 minutes in length. The end comes QUICK. The disk is in fact 54 minutes long. It's a high speed sonic voyage in a smoother spaceship this time around.

El-P's fingerprints and personality are confidently present. I hear no drastic changes for the worse to stress over. The technical progression is welcome to my ears. In fact his vocals sound less buried and you can actually recall some of his clever hooks upon initial spins. The short gruff choppy word flow I liked from FanDam remains. The album brings "The Cold Vein" to mind with it's aural moodiness and hip-hop psychedelia. My current favorite track is "Up All Night", but there really aren't any slagger tracks here and my ear is adapting to new elements daily with this one.

If you were the least bit intrigued by Fantastic Damage, look into this sophmore effort. In a fair world, this album would be highly rewarded.

After hearing "the overly dramatic truth" I decided I'd pick up this album, and i'm very glad I did. At first listen I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I was compelled to listen to it again as I was designing and by the end found that I had listened to the album about 4 times in a row and now I love it. Despite what some have said, El-P still retains his post-apocalyptic sound similar to Fantastic Damage and Company Flow days, but seems darker in a different way. His collabo with Trent Reznor is nothing short of amazing. I kind of hoped Trent would add a little more vocally to the track, but Flyentology is still amazing none the less. This album has a very unique and dark retro sci-fi feel to it which is executed perfectly. Lyrically this album is top-notch and the whole album is tied together lyrically which I also though was a feat in itself. If you like El-p's work or never even heard of him and want something different/unique then you need to pick this up. Rock and hip-hop heads need to check this out.
You won't be disappointed.

Hip-hop was becoming a tired institution when El-P, Bigg Jus and Mr. Len (under the moniker Company Flow) recorded one of the most stunning hip-hop albums of the '90s. Bleak, raw, and verbally devastating, 1997's Funcrusher Plus provided a real alternative to G-funk as the three fireball emcees rapped about war, corporate greed and extraterrestrial evil over bargain-basement beats and unsettling ambience. Over the next few years, El-P built up his Definitive Jux label and released a stream of high-quality recordings by some of the most vital emcees in the game, nearly all of whom used Funcrusher Plus as a blueprint to varying degrees. The label had gone quiet in 2007 when rumors of a new El-P record finally surfaced, sending excited twitters through the underground community. Some questioned the rapper's intent when they found out that the album would feature collaborations with Trent Reznor ("hmm"), The Mars Volta ("uh..."), and Chan Marshall of Cat Power ("are you serious?"), but most were fairly certain that it would pulverize in typical El-P fashion.

And pulverize it does. I'll Sleep When You're Dead feels absolutely ferocious; it's the roaring, heavy metal counterpart to Funcrusher Plus's skeletal hardcore punk, and it takes no prisoners from its galvanizing start to its death knell of an ending. Songs are packed to the gills with weird, ungodly noises, melodies appear and disappear like holographs, and dense yet nuanced rhymes roll atop percussion that could have been created by actual weaponry. Indeed, there's so much violence on this record that it should be traumatic to drink in, but El-P's skill and insight on the mic, his studio perfectionism and his flair for idiosyncratic drum programming keep the proceedings as gripping as a 13-car pileup.

Deeper listening reveals that Sleep thrives on a couple of paradoxes. First, the album maintains its focus and cohesion even as it spins off in many different directions. The doomy atmosphere of "Tasmanian Pain Coaster" doesn't sound much like the Brooklynese bounce of "EMG" or the almost operatic "Poisenville Kids No Wins," but even with the diversity (which is inevitable, what with the hundreds of sounds being employed), it's clear that there is a particular aural agenda at work. I'll Sleep When You're Dead sounds uncannily like a comic book, which isn't to knock it; after all, comic books these days attain a level of darkness and extremity that filmmakers are often too risk-averse to attempt. Imagine swarms of robotic flying insects in the Invader Zim cartoon from your worst nightmare raining down machine gun fire and you're getting close.

The second paradox has to do with El-P's lyrics, which attend to personal and universal problems as though they're both part of the same sick plan for humanity that was doomed from the very beginning. While Clipse's Malice and Pusha T believe that a worldly issue (coke dealing) affected their personal states (thickly obfuscated misery), El-P flips the algorithm: He views every act of savagery--from speeding cars to sexual abuse--as indicative of the world's endemic evil. Though it's clear that he doesn't want any part of it, he admits has no choice. He calls himself the "son of urban confusion hatched in a pit where brutes live" and "half a robotic monkey ugly born of a viral agent." Like Nas on his classic Illmatic, El-P simply speaks about what he sees and uses his observations as a form of social protest, reinforcing the idea that the most affecting hip-hop finds a middle ground between slouching back in the seat of a flashy convertible and trying to change the world. His raps have slowed down a bit from his previous work to become part of the rich milieu and to let us latch onto every grim metaphor he hurls our way, but don't worry; El-P's flow will still knock you out of your chair.

And the collaborations? They're all excellent, probably because El-P isn't concerned about flattering his guests, writing his songs his way and using Reznor, Marshall, Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala purely as filigree. The Mars Volta caps off the blitzkrieg "Tasmanian Pain Coaster" with an a funereal trudge, Marshall lends her emphatic torch singing to the chorus of "Poisenville Kids No Wins," and Reznor's sinister cackle seems form-fitted to the electronic torture chamber of "Flyentology." Though they do seem like unorthodox choices, especially compared to Def Jux labelmates Cage and Aesop Rock, all of these artists deal with depravity in their own music (albeit in different ways), and after a few listens, their additions on this album click oddly into place.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead is an utterly urgent recording, something that (unfortunately) feels appropriate for our perpetual state of emergency. Nas once famously spit, "I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death," to which El-P eventually paid tribute: "The timepiece must've read early morning at least, so I laid death's cousin, woken by the silence of the peace." The title of this record, then, seems like less of a threat and more of a helpless prayer to a deaf higher power. Something tells me that, deep down, El-P wishes that there wasn't any need for him to enter the rap world and do what he does. But as long as we live on Earth, this record is as good a warning as any to sleep with one eye open.

The only reason it took me so long to write a review is because I've been stuck listening to "I'll Sleep" until now. Now this is only my opinion but like I said this is the greatest hip-hop album ever made. I've been waiting for El to follow up Fantastic Damage(classic) but who knew it would take him 5 years to drop another album. But it's been worth the wait. I was kinda worried that El couldn't make another Fan Dam and I was right. I'll Sleep When You're Dead is a whole nother kinda beast. From the first minute i listened to it i was hooked. The CD opens up with TPC - a 7 minute masterpiece that only El-p could conjure up. This is one of my favorite songs on the album and of all time.It's 7 minutes of pure eardasm. Colabo with mars volta is dope, it almost has a rock feel to it but it's hip-hop through and through. Then comes Smithereens. It took me a while to get in to it but now i enjoy it just as much as the rest of th album. Up all night has one of the dopest beats i've heard in a long time. The amount of bass is rediculous it shakes my whole truck when i crank on my sub. EMG is another one of my faves, dope beat weird rhymes - classic El-p. Drive has some El's most clever metaphores on the album. Dear sirs is another track that i didn't get into for a while. I just didn't like the poem format of it but i enjoy it now. The last two lines are classic and if you have the album you know what i'm talking about. Run the numbers with Aes is dope. El drops a hot verse then Aes drops one and then El finishes it up. Classic track. The song with Cage is o.k. I'll skip it about half the time it just doesn't grab me like the rest do. I was kinda hoping for more out of a El-p and Cage colabo. I love The Overly Dramastic Truth. It's kinda of love song but it has that El-p twist to it. It's my 2nd favorite song after TPC. It's so good that my old lady who hates hip-hop loves it. Flyentology w/ Trent Reznor is good but i expected more out of a El-p and NIN colabo. No kings is a really good track. It would've been nice if tame1 dropped a verse instead of just just singing the hook but it's still really good. The league of extraordinary nobodies is another track that took me a minute to get into. I started liking it when I saw El in concert and he performed it live. He tore it up and the rest of the cd as well. Poisenville kids no wins/Reprise caps of I'll Sleep and you could ask for a better endeing. WOO WOO. With all this said this is just my opinion. You can agree or disagree with it. This album was made for fans of REAL hip-hop. Cuz chances are if you're a fan of Half-a-Dolla or I.T. or Young Cheesy or Lil' Jon or any of that commercial Cjunk crap this one's probably not for you. It takes a while to get into but it's not as chunky as Fan Dam was which took me almost a month to get into it. Only thing I'm concerned with now is that this might be the last El-Producto cd. He might have set the bar a little to high right now and it might take him another 5 years to follow up this one. I know that I'll be waiting. Thank you El-p for giving us this misical masterpiece to enjoy and i hope that you'll keep the coming. If you're a fan and you don't have this go out and get and help keep REAL HIP-HOP ALIVE. P.S. also go out and get Aesop's new one. None shall pass is probably the 2nd best cd to come out this year after... well it should be obivious by now.

I was expecting the best and thorough execution since El-p's last album was years ago. I must confess this is his finest work next to production with any member of the Def Jux camp. I especially liked his ability to work with some of music's finest artist collaborating on the best music he has graced our ears with. I listen to his cd as a muse to my own personal renaissance and can only hope El-pP keeps churning out musical masterpieces like this in the near future

It's been almost 5 years since EL-P's last "real" hip-hop album, Fantastic Damage. El-P has always been noted for being a dark producer. His style is very random and you won't find any "addicting" and "loopy" beats on this CD. However, this doesn't mean theres no addicting songs on this CD. You will find yourself listening to this CD over and over again because you will find yourself forgetting what each song sounds like, yet, remembering that they sounded tight. This is a sign of a CD worth listening too.

The opening song is perfect. In fact, the opening song is probably the best track on the entire CD. It's beginning is memorizing, the lyrics are clear and conversational, the chorus is catchy; the beat is raw and haunting, and the song changes through-out its 7:00 min course. Most hip-hop producers dare never to step on grounds that EL-P has made with this song alone.

'Smithereens' is another devastating track. Hard drums, off-the-wall samples (Is that Ron Burgundy I hear in the beginning?) and weird yet, catchy lyrics.

'Up All Night' is something you would hear on Fantastic Damage, almost a throwback too that album. Not really the best song on the album, but definitely listenable and may even be a favorite to some.

'The Overly Dramatic Truth' is an excellent song, perhaps my second favorite song. The echoed samples EL-P uses was a perfect addition to this beat. This song reminds me a lot of "T.O.J." from Fantastic Damage. Not that it sounds similar, but the overall ambiance and vibe the song gives out is much similar to T.O.J. (which was one of my favorite tracks from Fan Dam)

....and the praising goes on. These were just some honorable mentions according to me, but the rest of the CD is fantastic, and should not be overlooked. In fact, I recommend every track to anyone that loves hip-hop or is just curious about what experimental hip-hop should sound like.

Long live El-P.