DEATH GRIPS The Money Store hails from 2012 and is a promo advance CD-R housed in a card sleeve. A confusing band from the get-go, Death Grips first release, Exmilitary, was maybe a mixtape, maybe a debut, or maybe both, but there s little doubt that the freely downloadable monster was a headline release in the underground hip-hop renaissance of 2011. From Lil B to Shabazz Palaces, it was a great time to right click, but the 2012 season often involved entering credit card information -- not just to some file-hosting service but to an old-school record label, which in the case of the game-changing The Money Store, is shockingly the Sony-owned Epic. That this restless blast of paranoid avant-rap was released by an imprint that was also committed to signing the winner of the X-Factor recalls a time when you could follow Throbbing Gristle releases all the way up to Warner Bros, but none of this would matter if the music wasn t amazing itself, and it is. Here, the opening Get Got combines glitch, African rhythms, and a swirling keyboard riff right out of dream pop, all while MC Stefan Burnett offers hood incantations that fall somewhere between Gang Starr s Guru and Can s Malcolm Mooney. Remarkably, rock-solid hooks reveal themselves after repeated listens as the true stomper The Fever Aye Aye hides its Run-DMC love under a Nine Inch Nails-like blast, and while the lean, winding snake called I ve Seen the Footage is all No Wave, severe compression, and conspiracy theories up front, it s really just a tambourine shake away from becoming a possible Outkast track. Burnett would rather follow the music than front it, sensibly acting as one-third of the group when most MCs would choose to be either a focal point or an accessory in these surroundings. The dense bed of edgy grind that he s working with is crafted by producers Andy Morin and Zach Hill the latter being the man taking the genre-free attitude of Zorn and Laswell into the age of mixtapes , and it isn t without mercy or melody, even though it is, decidedly, an onslaught. All these elements are glued together by a Bad Brains-sized sense of purpose, which makes Death Grips sound alive and hungry in spite of their name, and while it is interesting that this dark ball of hip-hop anti-matter was released by a major, what sticks is the music. The Money Store is an important record that s also compelling, loaded with kinetic blows against the empire and fully stuffed with that attractive maverick spirit.
Get Got
The Fever Aye Aye
Lost Boys
Blackjack
Hustle Bones
I ve Seen Footage
Double Helix
System Blower
The Cage
Punk Weight
Fuck That
Bitch Please
Hacker
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