features pretty much everybody in Anticon - Why?, Dose, Sole, Alias, Jel and more - extremely slept-upon album.
Six years into the Anticon label's lifespan as one of the great imprints of underground hip-hop, producer and label co-founder Pedestrian finally released his first solo album, the compelling and occasionally bizarre Unindian Songs, Vol. 1. A collage-like set where even the conventional songs are regularly interrupted by atmospheric doodles, spoken word digressions and out-of-left-field change-ups, Unindian Songs, Vol. 1 is in part fascinating because of the way it makes Pedestrian's contributions to previous Anticon releases so much more obvious: as a producer, he's clearly enamored of vintage 808 beats and is equally fond of finding ways to subvert them. Note the way that "O Silent Bed" is built on a truly slamming minimalist electronic beat that the Neptunes would get into a fistfight with Timbaland over, a banging setup that Pedestrian gleefully messes with by inserting seemingly random starts and stops and overlaying the whole thing with one of the album's most unstinting calls to action. Other highlights include the fascinating two-part "Lifelong Liquidation Sale," the near-psychedelic atmospherics of "Jane 2: Electric Boogaloo" and the wound-up sarcasm of the bitterly ironic dance parody "The Toss and Turn," both the album's funniest and catchiest track. Unindian Songs, Vol. 1 is a dense work both musically and lyrically (a tongue-in-cheek section of notes and suggested further reading follows the lyrics in the liner notes), but patient listeners will find close attention amply rewarded. A1 Sermon On The Subject Of Death, Part One 0:45 A2 O Hosanna 4:54 A3 Lifelong Liquidation Sale (1850-1950) 0:36 A4 Lifelong Liquidation Sale (1850-1950) 3:26 B1 Sermon On The Subject Of Death, Part Two 1:33 B2 O Silent Bed 2:58 B3 The Dead Of A Day 3:22 B4 Arrest The President 3:31 C1 The History Channel... 1:05 C2 Anticon. 4:32 C3 Field Reports From The Financial District 3:36 D1 The Toss & Turn 4:21 D2 Jane 2: Electric Boogaloo 2:47 D3 Blind Dates 4:23
