The No Music

Themselves | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 17, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Anticon
• ASIN: B00006IQK8
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,551 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kitchen Sink -crusty beats and observations, hold the dogma, November 10, 2002

By 

Phil Avetxori - See all my reviews

This review is from: The No Music (Audio CD)

For many people, the Anticon crew area love 'em or hate 'em proposition. These are white b-boys who come across as genuine by keeping it real in reference to their own lives, rather than affecting a pose of simulated hip-hop "realness" and falling into the well-meaning minstrel trap. That's to say, Dose One, like the rest of his crew, laces his lyrics with bookish ephemera, references to now obscure 80s pop culture, wistful doubt, and the sorts of verbal jenga towers that part autodidact/part half-assed educated suburban intellectuals build up in vain attempts to outline the contours of that amorphous, unspeakable "it" which cannot be put into words, any more than 3-D object can be viewed from all sides at once. This is what mediated culture has given us to work with, and, unlike the indie-rockers that trade in similar lyrical currency, hip-hop has empowered Dose to plow through it all with self-assurance and Sisyphesian determination.

Musically, Themselves are similarly both real hip-hop and not. Like DJ Shadow, Jel works up hand-cued grooves with a warm n' worn feel. The similarities end there, howwever. This music explores the full implications of the sonic junkheap aspects of classic breakbeat wobble, and manages to bring the boom-bap simplicity when relief from information overload is needed. Dissonance is a big part of what's happening here, but as transitional passage between overlapping consanant segments, it keeps to the overall tendency toward unlikely connections that ultimately sound as natural as a walk down a noisy city street. There are textures here that seem to come from out of nowhere, both in the context of this music, and in their sheer alienness to anything you've heard before. But it all works, and it frequently bumps, with the occasional nod to Timbaland that's all too rare in an underground hip-hop scene more eager to distance itself from the mainstream than craft creative beats. The contrasts between hi-fi and purposefully lo-fi elements is even more pronounced here than on the cLOUDDEAD cd and this seems appropriate for the sharp-turning kaleidescope of this music. cLOUDDEDd felt like a melancholy haze of opiated reminiscence; "The No Music" is a technicolor plunge back into reality by headz still steeped in aesthetics and poetry.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Be careful, June 25, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The No Music (Audio CD)

In order to keep a balance here with all the other reviews (whose opinions I do respect), I'd like to say upfront that this album let me down. This album leaves a very strong sense of incompleteness, sounding like a rough draft to a final copy. Now there are many really tight beats on this album, but it seems once your head gets nodding it stops immedieately because the beat instantly switches up to something else. I would loved to see the final copy to this rough draft of this album; it's potential is very high but leaves you let down. At first I thought I got a bad copy of it since I can't even hear what Dose one is saying. It's not like the Them album where Doseone is clearly heard, but it's very muddy and distorted. I find it hard to agree with those revewiers who said Dose sounds very good on this album, for you can barely hear him. And the production is not good at all, unlike what that other reviewer said about putting other albums to shame in regards to production. did I get a bad copy or something, seriously? This production is the Worst I've heard, not the best. The worst. Now if this is the sort of thing that you like, then you will find this album to be totally sweet. I just feel that someone needs to speak up and balance the reviews on this page, because I bought the album fully trusting these reveiews and was severely let down. I resepect Dose and Jel if this is the sort of thing they were going for, but I just can't like this album. I love Sole, Alias, Deep puddle Dynamics, and Dose, so I'm not new to Anticon. But this album is not as good as the Them album by Themselves. It's decent, but not that good. Be careful.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, September 22, 2002

By 

cheeto (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The No Music (Audio CD)

Very good- you could call it a drum'n'bass clouddead, but that would be oversimplified. thankfully vocals by dose one arent as turkey-on-fire or Betabandish as in the past. he sounds good. jel (producer) did an amazing job at keeping the sound sparse, experimental, and hiphop all at the same time. wouldnt reccommend this for crossover material though-- rap fan wise, this is probably only for all the anticon/forward thinking hiphop people out there.