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Doseone

Photos by Matthew Scott

'G Is For Deep' available now on Anticon

Listen to 'Last Life' at Pitchfork

Watch the video for 'Thy Pattern' at Tiny Mixtapes

1. Dancing X
2. Last Life
3. I Fell
4. Thy Pattern
5. Therapist This
6. End&Egg
7. OwlShark
8. SEE Answer
9. Arm in Armageddon 
10. The Bends

For 15 years, Oakland's Adam "Doseone" Drucker has been spearheading the unfound sound, lassoing it, and wrestling it to the ground. Through hard work and hand craft, the rapper/producer/poet has built up a body of work of both striking quality and impressive quantity, rising through the ranks of '90s battle rap to become a celebrated solo artist and collaborator. Whether crushing genre through flagship projects like Themselves, cLOUDDEAD, and Subtle, or carving out his own brand of strange pop via self-produced albums like G Is For Deep, the Anticon cofounder remains endlessly inspired and utterly fearless.

Though born in Napa, Idaho, Dose honed his mile-a-minute wit and rapidly expanding imagination while splitting time between his parents' respective homes in New York and New Jersey. He relocated to Philly in his late teens, and then attended college in Cincinnati. There, he made it to the final round of the annual Scribble Jam competition, battling a then unknown Eminem, but the experience left him wanting something more. A year later, in 1998, he got it. At school, he'd begun experimenting with a pair of locals calling themselves WHY? and Odd Nosdam. Their freewheeling Greenthink group would morph into the much lauded psych-hop of cLOUDDEAD.

Meanwhile, a series of fortuitous tape trades resulted in the landmark collaborative project, Deep Puddle Dynamics, which brought together several soon-to-be titans of the indie rap world (Dose, Sole, Alias, Jel, DJ Abilities, Atmosphere) and inspired the growing family of musicians to start their own label, Anticon. In the process, Dose discovered his beat-making better half in Jeffrey "Jel" Logan and their partnership was unveiled with 1999's seminal Themselves debut, Them. As their collective star began to rise in the hip-hop underground, the crew moved west, to Oakland, to mine out a place of their own.

Happy coincidence would introduce Dose to Dax Pierson, the Berkeley-based keyboardist whose vision inspired the creation of the Subtle sextet. Taking pages from Can and This Heat, they'd shape their otherworldly, rap-addled post-rock from extended improvised jams, and go on to create a triptych of LPs whose vivid and expansive sound was matched by Dose's lyrics—an ornate set of characters and concepts embodying a mythology equal parts Buckminster Fuller, Dylan Thomas, and The Neverending Story. Similarly, the transatlantic 13&God was born, comprising Themselves and German plinkerpopists the Notwist.

As the dynamic voice of all of these and a live performer with a flair for the theatrical, Dose has gone on to collaborate with everyone from avant-rock mogul Mike Patton and TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe (collectively the Nevermen), to Watchmen author Alan Moore and members of Mogwai (the Unearthing LP box set). Meanwhile, his solo output has run the gamut from left field rap (Hemispheres) to spoken poetry (Soft Skulls) to books of illustrated verse (The Pelt). Experiments with animation have led to a cartoon called Mars Safari, a potential series produced by Cartoon Network. Working closely with creator Ghostshrimp (Adventure Time), Dose is doing voices, music and sound effects in the funniest of company: Dana Snyder (Aqua Teen Hunger Force), Steve Little (East Bound & Down) and Carl Jones (Boondocks).

One Sheet:

From the album's opening moments, it's clear that G Is For Deep is different sort of beast. Adam Doseone Drucker's first solo LP for the label he founded 15 years ago finds this one-man Oakland arts colony more lyrically naked than ever, singing instead of rapping, dressed in a Technicolor swirl of synthesizer, drum machine, hacked Gameboy, and layered voice. To call this pop might be misleading, but there are indeed choruses here. To call it R&B might confuse, but these are songs about one hardworking man's ups and downs with life, love, friendship, and fear. After years of innovating via projects like cLOUDDEAD, 13 & God, Themselves, and Subtle, Dose returns alone holding one of the brightest records of his career.

Through his work in those other groups, as well as his pending Nevermen collaboration with Mike Patton and TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, Dose honed his production skills until he could make the music he heard in his head. His aim with Deep was to do just that—to compose ten original pieces, rather than hit record and catch what came. Meanwhile, he'd play-test the instrumentals to a packed house at the San Francisco offshoot of L.A.'s influential Low End Theory club. When it came to the vocals, he took a different approach. Aiming for the spontaneity of his raps but conceding his limits as a singer, Dose would surround himself by pages of unsorted lyrics at night, drink copious amounts of whiskey, and sing at the top of his lungs. At 7 a.m. with a pot of coffee, he'd revisit and re-record each part stone sober.

In the end, G Is For Deep is something both considered and impulsive, equal parts brains and heart. There is a manic electricity to songs like the opener, "Dancing X," bassy kicks and burbling keys popping and pulsing in oddly harmonious sync. "I Fell" isn't afraid to get noisy even as it embraces melody—a perfect aural counterpoint to its subject of wanting nothing more than to fall in love, but being utterly cloistered against that outcome. "Therapist This" slowly grows from its low-slung beginnings into a towering sort of maximal soul as Dose sings of guilt as "a fearsome church built from black stone." His voice is alternately a mighty choir, a friendly whisper, a jilted growl. The album buzzes like a neon bulb, a lovely contrast to its ultimate question, poised on "The Bends" — "What exactly do you not understand about the blues?"

 

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