Clouddead
Clouddead (styled as cLOUDDEAD) was an experimental hip hop group consisting of Doseone (Adam Drucker), Why? (Yoni Wolf) and Odd Nosdam (David Madson).
The group's name came from a nonsensical knock-knock joke Drucker's sister told him when she was five years old.
Style
Generally Drucker and Wolf provide the group's vocals while Madson produces the music. Occasionally Madson's vocals can be heard, while Drucker and Wolf provide music, especially for the group's second album.
Clouddead's sound is notoriously hard to define, and although it is undoubtedly grounded in "traditional" hip-hop, influences as varied as electronica, psychedelic music and indie rock can be heard. Because of this non-traditional take on hip-hop, more conservative elements of the rap community have characterized Clouddead as "smartarse surrealism," with some elements of the community rejecting the notion that the group can be classed as hip hop at all, ignoring Sole's request to "just call it hip hop."
History
Clouddead's first six 10-inch singles were compiled as a self-titled album, Clouddead, in 2001.
Clouddead (album)
Clouddead (stylized as cLOUDDEAD) is the debut album by American hip hop trio Clouddead. It was released in 2001. It compiles the six 10-inch singles that the group had previously released on Mush Records over a period of two years. Each track on the album corresponds to one side of a single.
Reception
Mark Pytlik of AllMusic gave the album 4 stars out of 5, saying: "It's menacing, it's enthralling, and it's one of few modern-day records (hip-hop or otherwise) that honestly doesn't sound like anything -- or anyone -- else."
Thomas Quinlan of Exclaim! felt that "Clouddead follows more along the lines of Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart than it does hip-hop, but it remains rooted at all times in beats and samples." Stevie Chick of NME said: "This music takes the most abstract fallout of trip-hop as its starting point, working in white noise, telephone pranks and post-rock textures to create a disorientating mush you'll spend weeks getting lost in."
In 2014, it was described by Arron Merat of Fact as "a key touchstone for the North American hip-hop underground."
Podcasts:
cLOUDDEAD
ALBUMS
- Ten released: 2004
- cLOUDDEAD released: 2001
- 2002-07-17: The Peel Sessions: BBC Radio 1, Maida Vale Studios, London, UK released:
cLOUDDEAD
Released 2001- Apt. A (1)
- Apt. A (2)
- And All You Can Do Is Laugh. (1)
- And All You Can Do Is Laugh. (2)
- I Promise Never to Get Paint on My Glasses Again. (1)
- I Promise Never to Get Paint on My Glasses Again. (2)
- JimmyBreeze (1)
- JimmyBreeze (2)
- (Cloud Dead Number Five) (1)
- (Cloud Dead Number Five) (2)
- Bike (1)
- Bike (2)
2002-07-17: The Peel Sessions: BBC Radio 1, Maida Vale Studios, London, UK
- [Intro]
- □
- Dead Man's Teal
- Me and People
- Fence Hopping
- Birdcatcher's Return
- Birdcatcher's Oath
- [Intro]
- Danger Will Robinson Danger
- [Outro]
- [Intro]
- Apt. A, Part 1: Touching Story
- And All You Can Do Is Laugh, Part 1: Grey
- [applause]
- I Promise Never to Get Paint on My Glasses Again, Part 1: Mother Pregnant
- Jimmy Breeze, Part 1: I Taught Myself to Survive
- Jimmy Breeze, Part 2: Ram's Crumpled Horn
- Bike, Part 1: Edison a Cappella
- [applause]
- Bike, Part 2: Dead Dog
- The Sound of a Handshake
- [Intro]
- Bike, Part 3: Physics of a Bicycle
- [Outro]
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
-
by Clouddead
Physics Of A Unicycle
by: ClouddeadOrville and Wilbur
cold cut the anchor's from their ankle,
carving propellers from whale fins
in the back of a bicycle shop...
and thus begins the tale
of the thumb trigger cloud kill.
At last the Wright's reinvented the horse with wings,
another invention only fit for a mannequin.
Early time machine's
will have tended to leave you
left screaming
on a dinosaur's dish.
In da Vinci's "Bike Accident',
an outerspace whodunit?
monkeys play Magellan
as the next ex-Edison,
standing out in the crowd with a unicycle.
Physics of a unicycle...