General Patton Vs. The X-ecutioners (Ipecac)
By Tim Den
Monday. Apr 04, 2:39 AM
Read the names. I rest my case.

The long fabled collaboration finally rears its head… and fuck is it worth the wait. Vocal God – and, in my opinion, THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE – Mike Patton teams up with one of the world’s most respected turntable crews for a schizophrenic, a-mile-a-second sound collage overload that’s as bootylicious as it’s mind boggling. Is this the future of hip hop? Avant garde? Maybe both, for the kaleidoscopic breakdowns contained herein destroy dance floors and give audiophiles erections.

The X-ecutioners lay down the foundations with water-proof beats – tight, boomy, enticing – while Patton’s mouse clicks and clacks all sorts of overdubs atop the party. To list everything that passes through the speakers would be impossible – there are literally snips, cuts, and back-and-forth panning happening simultaneously eight layers deep at any given second – suffice it to say that the “songs” (humorously named akin to war lingo) are packed to the gills with EVENTS, but never at the expense of the hip hop experience. Rather, Patton’s trademark vocal versatility – barks, chants, stretched out enunciation of certain words that enhance the absurdity of it all – tests the limits of percussive possibilities within each groove. How many counter-rhythms can you fit into one 4/4 pattern? How many different ways can you arrange 1s and 0s – be they bass/snare, right/left, bleeps/bloops – and how many different combinations of them can you squeeze into EVERY MOMENT for 45 minutes? Quite unbelievable ambition, no? Thank goodness it’s in the hands of unparalleled talent.

Between Patton’s imagination and The X-ecutioners’ time-bending hands, you can only guess what fruits dangle from their mutated tree. As you sink your teeth into one after another, the plethora of tastes and their explosive, hypnotic insanity will rid your consciousness of all previously ingested, lesser musical impurities. You have savored a brand new essence. You can never go back.
www.x-ecutioners.net
www.ipecac.com

Tim Den

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