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May 22-28, 2003 musicpicks Fog/Dosh/Beans/ The Majesticons
If hip-hop's avant alt universe had a Milky Way, these would be its darkest stars. Andrew "Fog" Broder upped the ante on sampladelic DJ programming with an ambience of messy swipes, scratches and crackles topped with creepy, twangy guitars and shy nasal rants that seem to mean something. Borrowing the lo-fi lilt, intrusive samples and snaky, subtle melodicism of his eponymous debut, Fog's new Ether Teeth (Ninja Tune) goes farther into spacey, piano-pierced hip-pop -- as heard on the oddly angled rock of "What A Day Day," the tender balladeering of "See It? See It?" and several scary pop collages. Occasional Fog drummer Martin "Doss" Dosh, like Broder, uses hip-hop as a blanket to lay a sweet, sad sound of cut-ups, cheap beats and toy pianos on his Anticon debut Doss. Fog and Dosh are far on the left of hip-hop, almost silently pioneering its cheapest technology into scary sounding neo hip-pop. And in this corner: If Beans -- the mad socio-poet of the defunct electro-hop Antipop Consortium -- is serious, The Majesticons are comic relief. Though often De-La daffy on his Tomorrow Right Now (Warp), Beans' dry-ice rap and childlike tunes move from the balls-out ("Phreek The Beet") to the black-humored ("Mearle"); from ego-driven techno ("Raping Silence") to toxic spoken word ("Rose Periwinkle Plum"). Enter The Majesticons and their Beauty Party (Big Dada) album. With an often savage, satirical outlook on the consumerism of hip-hop culture, Mike Ladd and company (assisted by EL-P, among others) are lyrically caustic on their second CD, avenging the less-thans on "Platinum Blaque Party" and "Suburb Party." Unlike their broken beat avant-garde debut, Beauty lands The Majesticons squarely in P. Diddy-ville with syrupy-thick beats, big digestible melodies and recognizably sampled twists. Fog, Dosh and Kandywhales, Fri., May 23, 9:30 p.m., $7-8, 21+, Doc Watson’s, 216 S. 11th St.; The Majesticons, Beans, Gentle Jones and DJ Kilimanjaro, Tue., May 27, 7:30 p.m., $10, all ages, First Unitarian Church, 22nd and Chestnut sts.; 800-594-8499. 
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