EARTHLING

EARTHLING
RADAR (1995)
320 KBPS

You wouldn't readily identify such boundary-skipping madness with Ilford, Essex. Radar kicks off with the six-minute epic "1st Transmission," a single first previewed on U.K. TV's Later with Jools Holland. Rapper Mau's free-association lyrics -- "I'm rock, I'm roll, I'm Nat King Cole" -- adopt a quickfire estuary-English patois that harks back to the scat-jazz era. The whole album is saturated with unlikely reference points, Mau namechecking celebrities from Harvey Keitel to Juliette Binoche. The musical platform is ably assembled by co-writer Tim Saul (who was involved in Portishead's Dummy) and could be likened to a jazz enthusiast's take on trip-hop, though the sound is more eclectic than that description suggests. "I Love Albert Einstein," for example, contains a sample drawn from Athletico Spizz 80's "No Room." But it is Mau's old-skool, free-flowing hip-hop style that carries the day. One of those hugely rewarding albums that emphatically fails to sell beyond the confines of a vociferous but marginal audience.

1. 1st transmission
2. ananda's theme
3. nefisa
4. i still love albert einstein
5. accident at injured strings
6. soup or no soup
7. god's interlude
8. echo on my mind
9. infinite m
10. planet of the apes
11. by means of beams
12. freak freak
13. i could just die

password: MOODSWINGSmusic