Audiopile Review: The turn of the century was a rebirth period for underground hip-hop. The flurry of major label distributed independent labels and various subsidiaries that popped up through the ‘90s had mostly died off as hip-hop moved into the mainstream, the majors focusing more and more on sure shots and mass appeal. And most of those leading the charge during the ‘90s second golden age had either run out of steam or faded into irrelevance as the jiggification of rap consumed all. But if you had your ear to the underground in the late ‘90s, there was much to be excited about—Daniel Dumile, disillusioned with the raw deal given to KMD by Elektra, emerged as MF Doom and dropped one of the best rap records of all time; El-P had just formed Definitive Jux, which was very quick to put NYC back on the map for the underground; though initiated in 1996, Peanut Butter Wolf’s Stones Throw imprint would start to make waves by 1999 and 2000 with a young Madlib as he unveiled his Lootpack and Quasimoto guises; and labels like Big Dada and Lex had formed to give homes to unorthodox sounds emanating from home studios abroad. And, from a basement in unlikely Cincinnati, a trio named cLOUDDEAD would turn hip-hop on its head with a series of 10” EPs released via the recently formed Mush Records imprint, which would become a notable outpost for the emergent and abstracted side of the genre. Made up of Why?, Odd Nosdam and Doseone, the trio’s idiosyncratic blend of atmospheric, near-ambient production and obtuse poetry had little precedent in rap. This unique sidestep in hip-hop, which would further be fleshed out via their recently forged Anticon collective/label, has been described as the “post-rock of hip-hop” by none other than Tortoise’s John Herndon. Indeed, much like post-rock, cLOUDDEAD utilize the foundational elements of hip-hop toward new ends. The production, largely helmed by Odd Nosdam, feels more like a collage, the nearly impossible to trace samples are smeared into a woozy, crackling haze that can shift without warning, everything propelled by fuzzy beats that run counter to the predominate Timbaland-like precision concurrent in popular rap. Also bucking tired rap tropes are Doesone and Why?, who trade off surrealistic rhymes that land somewhere between Dadaist word play and abstracted in-jokes. Incredibly prescient, this collection of EPs and Anticon’s earliest releases would go on to inform further diffusions in hip-hop, forever changing the landscape of the underground. And all this from a dingy basement in Cincinatti!

cLOUDDEAD’s debut album, compiling six 10″ EPs that appeared between 2000-2001, is aurally dense and obscured. A sprawling mass of miniature beat-suites and Dadaist lyrics, this strange and beautiful 3xLP would influence a myriad of sub-genres (cloud rap, hauntology, lo-fi hip-hop, etc.) in the two decades since its initial release.

Only the three members of cLOUDDEAD – Why?, Doseone and Odd Nosdam – can speak to the group’s origins, but in the context of underground hip-hop towards the end of the 20th century, their arrival makes perfect sense. Cincinnati had a vital scene; home to Scribble Jam, an annual confluence of MCs, DJs, B-boys and graffiti artists. While the trio soon relocated to the Bay Area where they co-founded the Anticon collective, their Midwestern roots – in ramshackle basements of off-campus hovels, as the “cerberus of Southern Ohio” – would remain the atomic heart of their early recordings.

As Chris Martins writes in the liner notes, “The only reason we know their names today is because of how loudly and curiously they aired their insularity. They rewrote the entire world as they knew it through their own fucked perspective, and when those mysterious 10-inches started popping up in record shops, it wasn’t just a puzzle to investigate: there seemed to be a whole cosmology hidden in those grooves.”

Each side of the album represents one of those elusive 10-inches, each embodying a universe unto itself. Opening salvo “Apt. A” and “And All You Can Do Is Laugh” are perhaps most emblematic of the cLOUDDEAD experience. Why? and Dose create a new language through boundless non-sequiturs, sing-song non-choruses and call-and-response hooks, while Nosdam’s dexterous production shifts from crackling ambience of Flying Saucer Attack to tight Ohio Players drum breaks and oblique film samples.

Taken all together, cLOUDDEAD is an original interpretation of hip-hop in the surreal Y2K glow – a bizarre meeting point between William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops and MF DOOM’s Operation: Doomsday. All it took was a Dr. Sample SP-202, Tascam cassette eight-track and cheap RadioShack mic. There’s truly nothing like it.

This edition has been faithfully restored by Nosdam. Comes with poster.