Absence

Reviewed by Ariel Acosta
06.21.05

I was giving Moby Dick the old college try when a copy of Absence met my stereo. They seemed an odd match at first, a 19th-century sprawling ode to the symbolic power of whaling and an underground hip hop album, but I was familiar enough with the group to know exactly where the two works would meet. Dälek’s live shows can take the unlikeliest of venues (including, once, a Williamsburg, Virginia, Pizza Hut) and transform the place into the best kind of shipwreck. The beats that producer Oktopus throws out are so throbbing with seasick rhythm it’s all the audience can do to not careen overboard. Turntablist Still takes a needle and grooved plastic and finds the voices of sirens—wailing, screeching, beseeching. On top of this aural white squall comes the clear, forceful verse of Dälek himself, who—like Ahab—has no patience with the fakers in his field and doesn’t suffer the fools gladly. The sound of this group calls to mind the extreme moods of the sea: ominous calm, ecstatic fury, glimpses of redemption, glimpses of annihilation.

Absence follows smoothly in the wake of its predecessors, 1998’s Negro, Necro, Nekros, and 2003’s From the Filthy Tongues of Gods and Griots. Those familiar with their earlier outings will quickly identify Oktopus’ and Still’s unmistakable soundscapes, as well as Dälek’s lyrical themes. He’s still pissed as hell at the bling-bling booty shaking that hijacked hip hop’s poetic and revolutionary potential. In From the Filthy Tongues, he told us “Remember days of cardboard, fat lace, and krylon?/Microphones and twelves, tools we all relied on/Niggas dropped a verse, the thought was one to die on/I remember hip hop, that’s my Mt. Zion.”

In that vein, he opens Absence with a harsh critique of those who don’t respect—“Bleak circumstance led masses to only want to dance/A bastard child of Reaganomics posed in a b-boy stance/Make our leaders play minstrel/Left with none to lead our people.” Dälek’s rage comes from one who believes strongly in the power of words to create change, and his disappointment that hip hop hasn’t fought harder is palpable. Ultimately, though, his wrath is not directed at misguided MCs, but at the racist, corrupt society that limits options for so many. Throughout Absence, Dälek offers scathing indictments of a culture that claims to have atoned for its genocidal past while really finding more covert ways to go about the same ol’ same ol’. In “A Beast Caged” he says, “They’re telling tall tales to keep our eyes on foreign soil/Hearing truth from poor lips makes their blue blood boil/Play foil to false patriots/Remind youth of ’67’s race riots/When they learned to keep us quiet/Consumers consuming/Products we are now neither making or using.”

To this end, he promises in “Asylum (Permanent Underclass)” to “drop the fists and guns and use this tongue to combat.” Dälek often speaks more than he raps, but unlike most other underground MCs, he’s not interested in impressing you with flight-of-the-bumblebee quick flow, or with the far-flungedness of his references. His words are powerful and his mission profound: Damn straight, he wants you to hear what he’s saying.

For their part, Oktopus and Still create dense layers of noise that add to the poetry and emotiveness of Dälek’s verse. Their sounds, always lush, can crash and scream with calculated fury, or can be as expansive and trippy as Dr. Who incidental music. Oktopus, under his given name of Alap Momin, was once best known for being a very talented emo and hardcore producer, recording groups like the Van Pelt, Chisel, and Rye Coalition. Still is simply so skilled at manipulating sound that it defies genre categorization: It could be noise, it could be shoegazer, it could be just some straight-up old-school scratching. This is a group that made a collaborative record with Krautrock legend Faust and released a split EP with hyperactive noise terrorist Kid 606. Clearly, their sonic palate extends far beyond hip hop’s usual, just as Dälek’s words go far beyond the usual topics. Together, they create a sound that is astoundingly singular. Nobody sounds quite like Dälek; they exist at the intersection of hundreds of disparate influences. That said, Dälek is vital listening for pretty much everyone—seasoned head, indie kid or anyone else. Absence is an excellent introduction for those new to the crew, a little more focused and open than its predecessors, and will be joyously received by those already converted.