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Underground > Radio & Music >

Dan Le Sac / Scroobius Pip "Angles"

15:47 / 11.05.08

I liked 'Thou Shalt Always Kill' which has been knocking around for about a year, so I picked up the album. So far so middle-of-the-road with an uneven album 6 good tracks out of 12 or thereabouts. Songs that even attempt to have a heavy-handed social conscience always seem a bit trite and cringeworthy to me, though. There's some nods to other UK rappers Lady Sov (I think) and Dizzee Rascal (definitely) and a couple of great tracks, however.

22:33 / 11.05.08

I kinda despised SP from the very outset, but seeing him support RZA recently... just, well... confirmed it all really. I think I actually want to kill him. No weapons, just my fists, my hands on his windpipe. I want to feel the life leave his body, see the light leave his eyes, taste his dying breath on my lips.

It amazes me that so much self-righteousness, so much smug self-importance, so much painfully self-conscious prattle can come from the (very well hidden) mouth of one man. Part of me thinks it could all be just a ruthlessly close to the bone satire of backpacker indie hip hop and that Sacha Baron Cohen will turn out to be the secret behind the secret behind the beard, but even if he were it would still be like watching all the truly cringe-inducing moments from The Office, the bits that force you to turn away just that bit too much to be funny.

Thaddeus "B." Glands

08:31 / 12.05.08

When I first heard "Thou Shalt always Kill", the most I could manage as a response to it was confusion mixed with with a vague irritation. It just seemed to me a lengthy way of saying "my world-view is more significant than yours". A mixture of things that seem reasonable along with self-righteous proclamations that are occasionally outright bewildering.

I mean, what's actually going on with the lyric: "Thou shalt spell the word “Phoenix” P-H-E-O-N-I-X, not P-H-O-E-N-I-X, regardless of what the Oxford English Dictionary tells you." Is there some in-joke there that I'm not aware of?

11:41 / 13.05.08

I don't think it's an in-joke, I think he's just referring to the fact that "Pheonix" as a spelling fits the pronunciation better. Fee-oh-nicks.

More appropriate I'd have thought to suggest that Phoenix be pronounced Foe-ee-nicks - if we're going to start spelling everything phonetically then we might as well exhume Johnson and feed the fish with his bones.

15:13 / 13.05.08

I saw him with Mr Directo, having never heard of him before and i didn't like what i saw.

He seemed so incredibly smug.

It reminded me of teenagers who have no grasp of the world outside of their middle class, tory upbringing, then they see a Michael Moore film and they start preaching to adults about American foreign policy in a patronizing tone.

21:22 / 13.05.08

I liked Thou Shalt Always Kill and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, for bits of Pip and for the primo spazzed-out noizeglunk.

I still do, but I can see these arguments being very persuasive. If I'd investigated more, it's possible I'd be thinking the same way.

02:05 / 15.05.08

I think I feel similarly, iamus, in that I definitely like the music. Although, I'm not even an increment as offended by Scroobius as other posters. I think there is something of the pulpit in his persona, however, trying hard to occupy some 'truth-teller' position off an incongruous hip-hop soapbox.

I don't get the Pheonix/Phoenix thing either?

Also, on a second listen 'Back from Hell' definitely does appear to have the same cadences in parts as Lady Sov's 'Public Warning' (as queried in the opening post).

Sov
"My irrelevance, means more than ur irrelevance
Its evident, there's evidence
That I Am Bloody Excellent."

Scroobius
"When I get back from hell again
I'm gonna be so elegant
The relevance of my benevolence
is evident."

It really isn't unbelievable considering the appropriation of Dizzee Rascal's "Fix up / Look Sharp" in 'Fixed' and the, generally, theme of questioning contemporary English hip-hop running through.

"Looking for the Woman"- is a bit like an equally milksop antithesis to "Dry your Eyes" but not really any worse for it.
"Tommy" - As odd eulogy to Tommy Cooper is kind of great.
"Waiting for the Beat to Kick In"- a re-working of "A Christmas Carol" in which Scroobius meets and gets advice from an assortment of filmic characters; Elwood P. Dowd, Lloyd Dobler, Billy Brown, Walter Neff. Plus it has this line from "Harvey"; "In this life you can be oh so smart or oh so pleasant, for years I was smart but I recommend pleasant", which is a bloody great line.

That's the good of the album (generally) and the bad is pretty apparent but, fortunately, didn't go onto my iTunes and I can't remember them.

02:39 / 15.05.08

I think if I met Lady Sov, she would think I was 'wicked'

I would like to take her away from all that, you know?

13:59 / 11.08.08

i got into these guys recently thanks to the wonders of technology ( what did we do before the internet huh??)... the album is awesome, very different to what's going on in the mainstream or "alternative" right now... one song even samples radiohead! i don't think they're smug, just doing something different and being kinda provocative... i like that they're fucking with people, if they make people so mad they must be doing something right i reckon...

14:47 / 12.08.08

Hmmm......... not sure about these guys but am kind of pleased to see em getting a kicking, as I totally see the point about SB being pretentious.
On the other hand, I do like "Thou Shalt Always Kill", even though it kind of feels like a novelty hit now. Hip hop for people who don't like hip hop, anyone?

All Acting Regiment

14:47 / 17.08.08

I thought that too. Hip-hop made by people who are to hip-hop as R. Dawkins is to theology, possibly, for similar people. I mean in the sense of mocking things - things which the 'believers' do or think – without having any real knowledge of these things. Possibly.

19:12 / 17.08.08

I'm quite fond of thou shalt always kill for most of the reasons it's getting a kicking. A self important rant against against all things that are irritating Scroobius Pip. It's not like hip-hop has had a history of trying to brush slightly irritating things under the carpet for fear of sounding self important.

I'm not about to rush out and buy the album or see him live but it was a fairly entertaining few minutes and his rapping style ain't too bad.

I do get the phoenix thing. Every time firefox tries to correct my spelling in red I think I'll spell favoured with a u regardless of what the firefox dictionary tells me - I'm not this wild in all facets of life.

My favourite, with a u, bit in the song was:

Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music;
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music;
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music;
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music;

Still makes me smile.

I can see how he may start to piss me off in large doses, but then so does Weird Al.

20:43 / 28.08.08

21:04 / 28.08.08

It's great when writers say what you think. Lends itself to not thinking it out yourself, though... Me too, basically.

Haus of Mystery

12:59 / 29.08.08

I read that just this morning, and it made me smile.
I remember people insisting that I'd love Scroobius Pip when that novelty record came out. Then I heard it. And I tracked down all the people who said I'd love it and took their scalps.

Haus of Mystery

13:00 / 29.08.08

Also: 'saving hip-hop' is the most overused and fucking redundant statement currently in popular usage.

frenchfilmblurred

13:22 / 29.08.08

"Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches, and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be."

Aren't there five original elements, if they're supposed to be so old school: MCing, DJing, breaking, graffiti and beatboxing.

Haus of Mystery

14:22 / 29.08.08

Giant beards and Nathan Barley rapping definitely aren't a part either.

17:05 / 29.08.08

...they've got giant beards?

This changes everything.

I quite liked the first song on the album, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, but the entire album seems to be based on the 'fact' that it's new and fresh...when it just isn't, and the guy's rapping style overburdens whatever else is going on, to my ears, reducing the album to novelty, as others have said.

Funnily enough, it irritates me in way that Mike Skinner doesn't, for some reason.