DÄLEK
Absence
Ipacec
· Stunning and unclassifiable, this is the second release from globetrotting avant hip hoppers.
You may not have heard of Dälek, but don’t worry – you will. Dälek’s Absence is an album that is likely to send critics, hipsters and intellectuals into a frenzy, and every hyperbolic word of praise still won’t be enough.
It isn’t often that an album can leave you speechless, unable to properly comprehend what you’ve just heard, but MC-producer Dälek (pronounced "dialect"), along with producer Oktopus and turntablist Still, has fashioned just such a record. Breaking rules that you didn’t even know existed, Absence is a dizzying, almost overwhelming experience. With a vitriol, fury and consciousness not seen since the height of Chuck D’s rage, Dälek rails against consumerism, classism, racism and more, without the condescending baggage carried by so many "intelligent hip hop" MCs. "Culture for Dollars" comes as close to the verbal intensity of Jay Z’s "99 Problems" as we’ll likely get this year, but Dälek isn’t simply spitting mad. He adapts his flow, slowing down or turning on a dime to get off short bursts of rhymes, twisting his words around the dense production of big, driving beats and walls of sound. This is My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless channelled through hip hop, so much so that on "Ever Somber" it’s not clear if they have sampled some unknown track from that seminal album or simply created their own. The waves of piercing feedback punctuated by industrial noise are at times vaguely reminiscent of the best (and darkest) of Massive Attack, but it’s coupled with brilliant scratching and sampling, making for a breathtaking listen. While in February it may seem ridiculously premature to declare that you have heard the album of the year, I don’t feel all that uncomfortable saying just that.
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