El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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El-P, aka El Producto, is one of hip-hop's most obstinate and adventurous pioneers, combining a lo-fi old-school aesthetic with a progressive rock musician's inclination to push boundaries. He has never succumbed to the demands of corporate rap, instead choosing to pursue his own decidedly non-commercial direction. In the mid-'90s, he developed a strong reputation with the groundbreaking trio Company Flow, a band whose achievements include El-P-produced LP Funcrusher Plus on Rawkus Records, a label considered by many one of the best for intelligent hip-hop. Over the group's auspicious stint together, he proved he was himself capable of intense lyricism as well as sonic production so powerful it could stand on its own. In the latter part of the '90s, El-P was also a collaborator with Blackalicious, Mos Def, and Dilated Peoples.

In 2001, after releasing one last album with Harlem rappers Cannibal Ox, the group chose to amicably pursue their own directions. El-P then started his own label, Def Jux – later renamed Definitive Jux to avoid a suit from Def Jam. Between label operations and work on a proposed solo album from former Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha, he found the time to work on his own solo release, Fantastic Damage, which saw the light of day in May 2002. A critical masterpiece, it was followed by a real change-up, 2004's High Water, which was part of the Matthew Shipp-curated Blue Series and teamed the producer with Shipp, William Parker, and others from the fringe of jazz. Collecting the Kid, a collection of unreleased and hard-to-find tracks, appeared later that year. After nearly four years of work, El-P released his second proper production album, I'll Sleep When You're Dead, featuring contributions from the Mars Volta, Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, and even Cat Power. In 2010, he declared Def
Jux to be "on hiatus" and while the back catalog would remain in print, the lack of new releases meant El-P would have time to focus on his artistic work. The payoff came in 2012 with the release of two El-P associated full-lengths; R.A.P. Music, his collaboration with rapper Killer Mike, along with his own release, Cancer4Cure, which appeared on the Fat Possum label. The latter featured guest appearances from Danny Brown, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, and Killer Mike.

Kieran McCarthy, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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Usually, instrumental hip-hop albums are of limited appeal to most consumers. Without the skillful rhyming of a charismatic MC, even the most artfully constructed beats simply are not especially intriguing to anyone except aspiring rappers looking for beats to rhyme over, and DJs looking for beats to use as segues. But with a handful of producers, instrumental rap LPs can be as compelling as the originals. El-P Presents Cannibal Oxtrumentals compiles the backing tracks from Cannibal Ox's 2001 release, The Cold Vein, and the album's main producer, Def Jux's formidable founder El-P (formerly of Company Flow) reveals himself to be as skillful a producer as the Automator or RZA, and even without Cannibal Ox's vocals, the instrumentals are still worth listening to. Mainly, the album sounds as if it were the soundtrack for an unmade film, much as the work Eno made in the 1970s, since the tracks have a distinct cinematic quality that allows them to cohere and flow beautifully. Furthermore, there are plenty of little touches that emerge that would otherwise be obscured by vocals, such as the electric guitar riffs in "Pigeon," or the cathedral-like organ in "A B-Boy's Alpha." Oxtrumentals serves not only as a worthy companion piece to The Cold Vein, but as a fascinating album in its own right.

Victor W. Valdivia, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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Of all the boundary-pushing underground hip-hop acts who emerged in the late '90s, Company Flow was easily among the hardest and least compromising, spinning highly technical rhymes over buzzing, lo-fi beats with virtually no concessions to melody or polish. It comes as no surprise that onetime Company Flow leader El-P's solo debut, Fantastic Damage, takes a similar approach – yet it's a logical and distinct progression from the sound that made Company Flow such seminal figures in underground rap. Fantastic Damage is even more aggressive and confrontational in its approach, and this time out, El-P himself is solely responsible for the sonic backdrop, producing the entire record by himself. If the production sounds a little fuller than Company Flow's essential Funcrusher Plus, it's likely because in many places, El-P has fleshed out his scuzzy, banging, stop-start percussion tracks with abrasive, distorted noise, which sounds like nothing so much as the furies unleashed. There are also plenty of tinny, blooping vintage synths that lend the music a cold, inhuman air – and that's no doubt intentional, because Fantastic Damage paints a chilling portrait of contemporary society that's so bleak it often crosses into the apocalyptic. The music makes El-P's paranoid totalitarian nightmares totally convincing, not just because of its sheer wallop, but also in the subtler details that emerge with repeated listens – the bizarre sound snippets and ghostly washes that seem to teeter on the edge of madness. Throughout the record, El-P proves he's one of the most technically gifted MCs of his time, spitting out near-impossible phrases and rhythmic variations that simply leave the listener's head spinning. Accessible it isn't, but Fantastic Damage constitutes some of the most challenging, lyrically dense hip-hop around, assembled by one of the genre's true independent mavericks.

Steve Huey, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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Much as his work with Cannibal Ox proved before, El-P is truly one of music's most innovative, idiosyncratic producers, fusing the blunt crudeness of early-'80s hip-hop with the futuristic sweep and experimentation of progressive pioneers like Brian Eno and Can. Fandam Plus, a two-disc set that compiles instrumentals from his solo debut, Fantastic Damage, as well as remixes, demonstrates El-P's truly unusual talents. The instrumentals are especially powerful. Stripped of their vocals, they reveal new dimensions to what were previously only backing tracks. "Deep Space 9mm" and "Truancy" sound truly creepy and unnerving here, while "Dead Disnee" becomes even funnier with only the chirpy chorus vocals left. The second disc, which contains some remixes and enhanced content, is not quite as interesting. The remixes are enjoyable enough, but don't really add to or radically alter the music, so they really only prove how impressive El-P's original work was to begin with. (The second disc also contains enhanced content, mainly videos and lyrics.) It may seem strange to consider an instrumental hip-hop album as essential listening, but Fandam Plus is so experimental and inventive that it should appeal to more than just El-P fans.

Victor W. Valdivia, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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El-P's entry into Thirsty Ear's Matthew Shipp-curated Blue Series is a compelling experiment in genre and sound collision. El-P doesn't rap on this set, nor does he saturate his mix with a truckload of effects. His compositions are skeletal frames on which to hang his mixological architecture of ambitious beats and skeletal samples, creating a tightly controlled dynamic inside which ambitious music is created. His collaborators are pianist Shipp, bassist William Parker, drummer Guillermo E. Brown, and a horn section comprised of Daniel Carter on reeds and flute, Steve Swell on trombone, and trumpet prodigy Roy Campbell. While many titles in the Blue Series catalog seem to be varied in terms of texture and dynamic, High Water is not. This feels like a conscious decision on the part of El-P. The palette is restricted atmospherically; his compositions are almost song-oriented – at least in the beginning. The funky breaks on "Get Your Hand Off My Shoulder, Pig" offer a glance into the depths of his aesthetic: the grooves are midtempo with Shipp delving into his blues and soul book for vamps and a solo, Parker laying underneath and propelling the cadence and the horns floating over the top of those massive beats. Shipp is the first to meander, decentering the melody, pulling it apart phrase by phrase and then turning it inside out. All the while the horns shift harmonics while keeping the timbre and tension in clear view. On "Get Modal," the pop tune "Where Is the Love" becomes the jump-off place for investigation. Parker kicks its phrasing first before Shipp chimes in and confirms it. The skittering beats make the track feel like it is coming off a Tilt-a-Whirl, and a forgotten soul vocal is tossed into the background to rattle around just behind the horns. Meanwhile, Brown's counterpoint polyrhythms accent El-P's foreground sampling – including a looped guitar riff from the ether – and all of it is capped with brief yet tough solo from Campbell.

The crackling strangeness in "Intrigue in the House of India" is indicative of the album's moodiness and rhythmic parlance. Shipp's carnival-inspired Afro-Cuban son riff opens out onto a carousel of sonic layering – Carter's flute solo is the only thing that feels as if it were recorded on Planet Earth and Brown's weaving in and out of the synthetic rhythms keeps everything shimmering, skipping along into a void where entropy and suffocation would be the only choices were it not for Campbell once again cutting through the detritus and creating a melodic center. At about three minutes and 15 seconds into the track, the cut breaks open with big beats, Parker's cutting drone bass, and ambient sonics paring their way into the heart of the rhythmic soundscape. The theme that threads through the album is a complete reconsideration and rewiring of Charles Aznavour's "Yesterday When I Was Young." It is quoted at the beginning as the players get ready, in a faltering, stuttering, tentative attempt to encounter the subtleties at work in the tune's harmonic palette – like the mood of the disc, it too is consciously restricted. When they get to its full articulation on "When the Moon Was Blue" with Harry Keys singing, the beats seem to separate from his voice, which invokes not only the ghost of Aznavour and his theatrical phrasing but also Louis Armstrong's with his underappreciated sense of melancholy. As horns offer droning bell-like lines across the entire top of the tune, El-P's beats pop under the vocal and Shipp and Parker wander the rounded edges of the melody's margin, a step away from complete implosion. Brown jumps through hoops and keeps the entire band – mostly – inside not only the time, but the tight lyrical consideration that makes up the body of the tune. In sum, it's a moody and haunting record with a few highs, a few lows, and lots of shades of blue to make your way through. Recommended.

Thom Jurek, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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Gathering El-P's whims and whatnots, Collecting the Kid is a surprisingly purposeful full-length that hangs together despite its pedigree. Instrumentals that were rejected by rappers, raw tracks that haven't found a home, and bits of El-P's soundtrack to the Bomb the System film are the three main sources for these moody sounds, but only the revolving door of more guests than usual hints these cinematic tones are orphans. Maybe it's the arc of the album, which starts with a building tidal wave of sound and ends on a sleepy track from Central Services – El-P's group with Camu Tao from S.A. Smash. More likely, it's the fact El-P is starting to balance his instrumental albums, where the music wanders, with his rap albums, where things are more to the point. "Telemundo" is the two-worlds-in-one track with the help of film dialogue and a changing song structure that resembles a suite. The throbbing bass on "Constellation" verifies the producer's Can influence while the man himself gives props to Art of Noise in the liner notes. These insights into the man's taste outside of rap are interesting, and you could call this El-P's least hip-hop album if it weren't for the jazz-based High Water. Of course, Matthew Shipp curated that album and this is El-P on his own, just doodling. That he's in no hurry to grab the mic again is a disappointment for some, but the lyric-filled "Jukie Skate Rock" should satisfy with Camu Tao and Big Wiz throwing it back to a time the dancefloor was filled with Buffalo Gals. The soundtrack work and hanging with the jazzers has left an impression on the producer. His work here is more concerned with feel and groove and less worried about being on point and revolutionary. He won't change the world by drifting off into the atmospheric ether this often, but if this is a sketchy blueprint for what Fantastic Damage's true follow-up will sound like, watch out.

David Jeffries, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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With even commercial rap's fortunes on the decline during 2007 and Rjd2 going indie rock, the rap underground must have seemed like a lonely place to El-P. Perfect time for a community album featuring contributions from most of the Definitive Jux community as well as some expertly fitted outsiders (the Mars Volta, Nine Inch Nails, even Cat Power). As a producer, El-P's only gotten better since Fantastic Damage. If a Bomb Squad production made it sound like the Apocalypse was nigh, El-P's tracks come post-apocalypse – no less heavy but dark, dusty, and brittle, marching numbly like an army of the popping and locking dead. I'll Sleep When You're Dead is definitely the best-produced and most powerful Definitive Jux record since Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein – which makes it the best in underground rap during that time. Meanwhile, El-P's improved as a rapper as well. Although what he's trying to say or mean exactly is often in doubt, he's better than any of his past CoFlow compatriots at matching the air of doom inherent in the sound ("I might have been born yesterday, sir/But I stayed up all night"). By the time Chan Marshall of Cat Power wraps up the record – playing a sampled soul siren – I'll Sleep When You're Dead is revealed as one of the most powerful hip-hop albums of 2007. While Public Enemy exposed the hypocrisy and greed of the '80s, El-P reflects his era just as well; the sense of stress is palpable, an "after the end of the world" feeling that's waiting anxiously for something else to be born.

John Bush, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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El-P’s productions have been known to induce mass head-bobbing among the underground hip-hop crowd, but with this instrumental mix album he’s bound to get some feet moving too. Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3 is a logical progression from his hectic early work as genres like dubstep and grime have since appeared to increase the pressure. Extended runs of uptempo numbers are something new for the man, and the album refuses to chill until it takes a breather on track six, a familiar slow-roller titled “Time Won’t Tell.” He’s never been as electro as he is on the breakdancer’s delight “DMSC,” and if you want to imagine what El-P would have been like in the golden age of fusion, then “Contagious Snippet” is your grand ticket to an imaginary past. Instrumentals to unreleased remixes for Young Jeezy (“I Got This”) and Kidz in the Hall (“Driving Down the Block”) fit finely into the mix while giving aspiring producers something to shoot for, and the flow of the whole project is spot-on, including some unexpected twists and turns. Fans who buy the CD, LP, or digital download from certain vendors may receive a download code granting access to the first two volumes in the series, which were originally only sold at El-P’s live shows.

David Jeffries, Allmusic.com

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El-P - Albums Collection 2002-2012 (9CD)

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"Producer, label CEO, and rapper" is how you normally list El-P's credentials, and while those dense, fascinating, and funky beats he creates keep that “p” word in the lead-off spot, his 2010 announcement that his Def Jux imprint was going “on hiatus” meant “rapper” moved up a notch. Some would say “own worst enemy” should be worked in there as well, as he seemed more the “spiritual CEO” of the 2010-2012 underground rap explosion, "losing out" on a time where Def Jux had a shot at being Def Jam, and here he is focusing on his wordplay and metaphors while producing killer Killer Mike albums (R.A.P. Music) for other labels. So maybe Cancer4Cure isn't just one of those too-cool, Def Jux-ian titles that rolls off the tongue, but a metaphor for why this vital blast of purpose exists, and why, for artists like El-P, "winning" isn't everything. Support for this comes from an old Groucho Marx quip (“I wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have me”) which becomes a mantra during the supreme grinder “The Jig Is Up,” and while the now more full-bodied producer/rapper is talking about a fiercely confrontational, one-on-one relationship in this instance, the massive “True Story” is the macro-version, dropping “I shoulda stayed asleep/Wakin' up can get you killed” and recalling a time when irony carried more weight. Be it about getting bumped to the majors or any other kind of coerced sellout, “Sign Here” is the paranoia clampdown supreme with tight loops suggesting a small interrogation room as El-P repeats “tell me what I want to hear” until the listener feels violated. The main character in the slow robot called “Stay Down” is “dressed to the nines like a target” while the cryptic closer “$4 Vic/Nothing But You+Me (FTL)" wakes to “another showdown with the woozy and the conscious” before proudly declaring “You cannot thrown me in the briar patch bitch/That's where I live.” It would be unfair to pigeonhole Cancer4Cure as a conceptual album speaking on the state of hip-hop, because its “stay true” and “all that glitters is not gold” messages extend way beyond, but since it is the man's craft, this is a much more exciting attack than calling out offenders by name, or offering those old-school imitation albums that the competition often settle on. Cancer4Cure is about hip-hop like Glengarry Glen Ross was about sales, but these great works transcend their industries, offering solace and inspiration to anyone who would prefer a satisfied mind over a Cadillac Eldorado, or in current terms, an Escalade.

David Jeffries, Allmusic.com