Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.
Soom T & Disrupt: Ode 2 a Carrot (Jahtari, 1/24/11)
Soom T & Disrupt: “Weed Hawks”
[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Soom_T_Disrupt_Weed_Hawks.mp3|titles=Soom T & Disrupt: “Weed Hawks”]
Hajduch: Happy new year, everybody.
Morrow: Go, competitive sports teams!
Hajduch: Glaswegian MC Soom T has worked with an impressive list of collaborators in her career, including The Orb and DJ Maxximus. Her distinctive voice has lent personality to lots of great cuts over the years, several of which were produced by Disrupt, who pioneered the “digital laptop reggae” sound of his label, Jahtari.
Now Jahtari expands the collaboration with a 2xLP/CD called Ode 2 a Carrot. The styles on display are not particularly divergent from what you’d expect: Soom T sings about weed, cops, weed, peace, legalizing weed, and weed over Disrupt’s deft blend of dub reggae, hip hop, and dubstep. A few of the beats are recycled from previous Disrupt releases, with Soom T’s flow fitting in nicely. Disrupt’s compositions are narcotic, head-notting affairs on their own, so it’s cool to hear them stripped of their dubbed-out sci-fi samples and replaced with double-time, high-energy vocals.
Morrow: Even though I’m not usually down with dub reggae, there are plenty of characteristics that I enjoy, and for whatever reason, Soom T’s Scottish accent makes the Rastafarian lyrics more tolerable. However, I have to say that listening to someone spending an entire album rapping about marijuana is about as exciting as someone spending an entire album rapping about rapping.
The press materials claim that this is a “tongue in cheek” album that will “gather up every ganja cliché ever designed and smash them all to smithereens.” Maybe I’m missing something while enchanted by the accent, but I’m not hearing it. Unless the joke here is to mimic legitimate weed worship to a T while laughing at it, it’s over my head. Also, I’m confused as to why the song “Roll It” clearly begins with the sound of lighting it.
Hajduch: I think that the sheer amount of weed worship is in and of itself ridiculous. I also know that I zone out so much more to the production and that rhythm that the lyrical content totally passes me by. (As an aside, for you readers, the song titles are almost entirely marijuana references, and it’s hard to say just how stupid someone sounds when discussing these songs by name.) As to your confusion, I think the sound of rolling it might lack the same impact on record.
But back to the music: Disrupt’s LFO-sampling “True Creators,” off his classic debut LP Bit Foundation, comes back to Earth when Soom T lends her vocal chords to it as “I Need Weed.” “Weed Hawks” is built around Disrupt’s “Samurai Showdown” beat, which samples the Neo-Geo game of the same name and is impossibly heavy. If you have ever liked hip hop, dub, dubstep, video games, or weed, you would probably like at least something off of this excellent album.
Morrow: I’ll have to disagree with you on the “excellent” description. You’re much more immersed than I into dubstep and various electronic sub-genres, but to me, the production is still a little blasé. Disrupt does a great job of translating reggae into an electronic format, but after half the disc, I’m ready for something else. But I suppose that I were all ganja-ed up, the repetitiveness wouldn’t bother me so much, jah?
Jah Scott! Jah!