Dammit, I don’t LIKE hip-hop. This is one of those ironclad
\npersonal rules of mine. So I’m offended that Bay Area
\nrap\/punk\/reggae\/hip-hop outfit El Jefe has dared to have the
\naudacity to lay down some tracks that even I, a hopelessly uncool,
\nunfly, and unhip music journalist can enjoy. Because, O Ye DV
\nFaithful, El Jefe rocks. Their debut disc,
\nEl Jefe’s Amorphous Phormula<\/i>, is probably going to appear on
\nmy year-end Top Ten, thereby fulfilling one of the signs of the
\ncoming apocalypse. Meanwhile, however, let’s enjoy it, shall
\nwe?<\/p>\n
El Jefe is a five-piece band, and all five pieces are
\nastonishingly good. Fernando Cardoso lays down serious drum beats
\nas a foundation, Peter Lazarus plays a mean bass, Ken Bryant’s
\nguitar flickers from genre to genre with astonishing felicity, and
\nthe twin vocals of Darren Reid and Carlos Gonzalez are brilliant,
\nbridging the gap between rap and spoken-word with an almost
\nbeat-poet sensibility. Add in a myriad of fun, unexpected
\nflourishes, and you have something that transcends normal,
\nrun-of-the-mill hip-hop like nothing you’ve ever heard before.
\nSometimes El Jefe puts me in mind of serious old school poets like
\nKRS-One, and it’s no mistake perhaps that they’ve opened for him.
\nEl Jefe is who quasi-poseurs like Limp Bizkit want to be, and thank
\nthe gods they’re around. Amorphous Phormula is tribal chants for
\ntribes that meet under highway overpasses, and whose shamanic
\nfetishes include subway tokens and stoplights.<\/p>\n
As such, this is a very very cool CD. Tracks worthy of note
\ninclude the horn-laden “Intro,” the surprisingly deep “1\/2 Self,
\n1\/2 Expression,” the street poet’s hallucination of “Nightmare On
\nCesar Chavez Road,” and the shamanic journey of “Mushroombeat.” The
\nhigh point, by far, is the oddly gentle “Weather Radio,” whose
\npiano (yes, I said piano) puts me in mind of Radiohead or other
\ndark progressive groups. Toss in samples from the National Weather
\nService and rain sounds, and you have a lyrical snapshot of the
\nrare moments California gets a good soaking.<\/p>\n
\nEl Jefe’s Amorphous Phormula<\/i> is a brilliant piece of work
\nfrom a band that I hope is around for a very long time. It’s
\nchanged my mind about a lot of things, and I can’t give a piece of
\nmusic higher praise than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7045],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38016","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-el-jefe","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38016"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}