More Heart Than Brains

Album Review

This is a weird one. Rapper Buck 65 and producer Greetings from Tuskan have apparently never met in person, but collaborated remotely to create this electro-hip-hop experiment, one that succeeds more than it fails and, when it does fail, does so in pretty interesting ways. There are moments when you kind of wish Buck 65 would shut up so you could hear the accompaniment better — Greetings from Tuskan's backing tracks are subtle and detailed, funky without being especially beat-obsessed, full of rich colors and creepy glitches. For the most part, Buck 65's raps are almost equally intriguing, filled with unusual imagery and characterized by an intense but controlled flow. Highlight tracks include "Lazarus Phenomenon," "Nightdriving," and the completely gorgeous "One More Time Forever," which juxtaposes straightforwardly pretty music with dark and somewhat disturbing lyrics. On the downside are an awkward rendition of MC Shan's "MC Space," on which the beats and the verbal accents are completely mismatched (never an advisable problem to have when you're bragging about your flow and inviting your rivals to battle), and the equally awkward "Always I Will Miss You. Always You.," on which the music and the vocal seem to be mismatched. The title track brings in cold (and possibly computer-generated) female vocals, to interesting but not really compelling effect. Fans of outsider hip-hop will definitely want to check this one out; others may want to proceed with some caution.