Outlier hip-hop/noise label Deathbomb Arc have been “freaking out” over their new signing Dos Monos – a Japanese/Korean hip-hop trio – and here’s the video that’ll explain why.
With an initial manifesto to “hijack your ears”, Tokyo-based Dos Monos do the same with your eyeballs in a garish bug-filled video for the track ‘In 20xx’, with hyper-cuts of game arcades, subway stations and discount shopping malls, fed through busted CCTV, warped VHS and web 1.0 glitches. And watch out for the disembodied basketball head that bounces all over the place.
The track itself hangs loosely off a RZA-style minimal piano hook that could slot in anywhere on GZA’s Liquid Swords, but it’s offset by free jazz horn loops, as they boast of the “tapestry of sound, the sample is Theolonius”. The Japanese bars are auto-translated in real time in the video, with some belters like, “The nerds gathering around the niche industry/we’re, so to speak, the waste of that industry’, “Pied piper attracts the wet little mousies” and “Petrifying to death with eyes like a Gorgon/such magical violence”.
Their classic gruff flow suggests teenage years with Wu-Tang MP3s over any trap-related detours, but there’s also an Odd Future up-yours horrorcore buzz and a hint of Death Grips’ lo-fi visual anarchy in the video. More like this please.
Deathbomb Arc promise a debut album soon, but until then just binge on ‘In 20xx’.
Moo Kid 