High Priest - Born Identity

Sound Ink are on fire at the moment, what with flamin’ hot new material from those Shadetek boyz and this, a brand spanking new full-length from none other than Antipop Consortium veteran High Priest. So, I hear you ask, what the hell does it sound like? Well it won’t shock you to hear I’m sure that it’s got more than a little leaning toward that Antipop sound of old, there are even a few moments on here that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on ‘Tragic Epilogue’, but that’s no bad thing to these ears and Priest is fully on form here, spitting cynically and producing maniacally. Harnessing his well-publicised love for experimental electronics, classic hip-hop and modern commercial techniques what we end up with a doom-ridden record of skewed analogue beat-mangling and low-light beat poems. One part Neptunes, one part John Carpenter and one part Arto Lindsay, High Priest gives the avant garde a kick up the ass and something to actually move for, finally; at no point on the album do you ever get the feeling he’s meandering or experimenting for the sake of it, rather these are club bangers put through a different process. It’s so exciting to me to hear a hip-hop producer seemingly producing without worrying about the commercial implications or even worrying about the hip-hop scene itself – Antipop have always had this quality about them, but here High Priest sounds totally unguarded, totally free to realise his own unique vision. I think one of the best comparisons I could make would have to be fellow New Yorkers Dalek, who share a similar appreciation of the darker, more experimental side of hip-hop – but what High Priest manages to do above everything else is inject his compositions with funk. If you want to hear genuinely forward thinking hip-hop there’s nowhere else to go – recommended!
review by http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=30087



DOWNLOAD