El-P
Fantastic Damage
[Def Jux; 2002]
Rating: 8.9
Back in '97, El-P released Funcrusher Plus with his seminal group Company
Flow. The album's tense, hypercreative backdrops laid such a sturdy foundation
for the underground hip-hop world that it still echoes five years later, and
has since been widely recognized as one of the genre's greatest achievements.
Unfortunately, after only a few additional singles and an instrumental album,
Company Flow was officially sent off last year with a blistering farewell show
in Boston. And while El-P's remained busy with production work (most notably
Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein) and running a record label (the estimable
Def Jux), heads have been hungry for the man to step back up to the mic.
Now, after a series of frustrating delays, El-P's finally kicked out his first
solo LP and exceeded the expectations of everyone who anxiously awaited its
arrival. Fantastic Damage is an unrelenting, end-to-end burner that
not only heralds the resurrection of El-P, but also provides a milestone for
post-millennial underground hip-hop. The music is carefully constructed and
sonically intricate. Distorted guitars, cacophonous, high-pitched ringing, and
spiraling screams comprise its musical motifs. Lyrically, El-P eschews hip-hop's
straightforward style for fits of associative word clusters (a la Kool Keith,
or even early Pavement) that sound like a freestyle battle between a Marxist
pamphlet and a technical manual. "Motherfucker, does this sound abstract?"
El-P howls on one early track. "I hope that it sounded more confusing than that."
Like Funcrusher Plus, the themes on this album are predominantly political.
"I am not a mechanism borne for the state," he spits, "I had to be trained." In
"Dead Disnee," he fantasizes about visiting a post-apocalyptic Disney World-- a
bleak prospect considering recent threats from the al Qaeda network. El-P even
takes a sharp-witted stab at the Star Wars phenomenon on Fantastic
Damage's title track, charasmatically ranting, "Operate catapults and goosestep
over the innocent/ Vagrant of Reganomics phase with books to burn at the pod race.../
This is that Bronx magic, without Lucas Arts graphics/ Crayon colored green
monsters and horrible child actors."
But while anti-capitalist anthems have always been his specialty, El-P's greatest
accomplishments on this album are his newfound lyrical abilities, at once
emotionally resonant and conceptually creative and consistent. On "Stepfather
Factory," he fuses his personal and political rage and delivers the record's
most fully realized concept song. Affecting the voice of a CEO for a corporation
manufacturing abusive guardians, El-P softens his caustic howl as he rhymes over
a dark, looming beat that vividly conjures a corporately oppressive near-future.
If Sly Stone phoned up Stockhausen for a presidentially mandated collaboration
with 10,000 hours of government-granted studio time at Abbey Road, they still
couldn't have crafted a soundscraper this abrasive, complex, and primal. An
infectious retro-futurism informs the parting beat of "The Nang, The Front,
The Bush and The Shout"; the chorus of "Dead Disnee" is what Devo might sound
like after spending a few days spun on PCP and meth; and "Lazerfaces' Warning"
approximates industrial circus funk. Then there are the guest appearances:
while Aesop Rock comes on with a surprisingly disappointing verse, Vast Aire
drops another nugget of noir swagger on the "Dr. Hellno and the Praying Mantis."
As tight as Fantastic Damage is, subtlety is definitely not its strong
suit, and its esoteric and indulgent moments might have been better executed
with a little smoothing over. Still, with a sphere of oppression and violence
hanging over this country, El-P's trenchant examination of our environment and
inner space is like manna in a desert of irony. No doubt, El-P has delivered
both what we'd hoped for and what we need right now. This is his statement for
these times, and it's one of the finest hip-hop records I've heard all year.
-Sam Chennault, June 19th, 2002