Displacement

Displacement
Label: Mush
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Displacement

Maybe gloomy hip-hop is as common as voter fraud in the Midwest. In Lawrence, Kan., it certainly seems that ID and Sleeper have seen some rainy days. On Displacement, their debut, beatmaker Sleeper’s moody, droning sounds emanate like mist from dreary alleyways and sewer grates over weighty, sluggish drum loops. No lyrical sunshine, either, as ID rattles off the kind of closet-kept composition-book notes that parents readily snatch from their drifting teenage kids. He pulls off an inward-looking El-P impression on “Catcher” and he and Sleeper edge downward into nightmarish paranoia on “Chemical Burn.” The factory squeals, buzzing and ambient bridge on “Chemical” push past anonymity, before the duo skates almost hand-in-hand with the downtrodden throngs of their peers. Between ID’s often heavy metaphors and Sleeper’s empty playground-dwelling atmospherics, this is bleak stuff.

This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2005.