Dr. Octagon ‘Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation’ Review: acclaimed, experimental hip-hop
[rating=5]
It’s been 22 years since 1996’s Dr. Octagonecologyst, the début album featuring Kool Keith’s extraterrestrial gynecologist persona Dr. Octagon. It was an instant bizarro-hip-hop classic, mixing sci-fi and pornographic imagery, garnering critical acclaim and a devoted cult following in the process.
While Keith dabbled under the Dr. Octagon moniker on occasion in years since, it was sans chief sonic architect Dan Nakamura (aka Dan The Automator), whose horror score soundscapes perfectly complemented his surreal non sequiturs, the combination of which made Dr Octagonecologyst such a dizzying, disorienting masterpiece.
They’ve recently rekindled their unholy union (along with help from collaborator Dj Q-bert) on Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation (due April 6 via Bulk Recordings/Caroline). And this unexpected sophomore release picks up right where their 1996 album left off.
Things kick off with the appropriately titled Octagon Octagon, featuring the announcement: Octagon is back…people have gone octagon crazy!, followed by eerie synths and Keith’s oddball rhymes in full effect.
This is followed by Polka Dots, featuring a strident breakbeat and mournful string samples, that offer the backdrop for wonderfully weird couplets like:
Seahawker stalker
Wear my helmet in the VW
I’m in love with you
Clean the engine
You know how I cruise
Black Hole Son mixes demented music box chimes and psycho horror strings, while Power of the World lurches from crunchy guitar riffs to euphoric sing-song chorus.
Q-bert’s turntable magic is the icing on the surreal cake, from frenzied scratches on the trip-hop throwback Operation Zero, to dissonant jabs on the industrial banger Bear Witness IV.
Area 54 starts off with a porn flick sample followed by carnival theatrics, a pounding back beat, and Keith flying fast and loose over rhymes like My ship walk up the building like snow crabs/You go Chick-O-Stick, I might break in half/Pull over the star-child, put gas in your ass.
Flying Waterbed is the album’s biggest left-turn, eschewing the standard amped-up atmospherics for a 70’s soul inflected slow jam, before things go back to mad scientist-mode on 3030 Meets The Doc Pt. 1, featuring fellow hip-hop eccentric Del The Funky Homosapien.
It’s worth noting there’s no attempt to court current trends on Moosebumps. It sounds as alien and out there today as it did in 1996, and could just as easily have been released in 1998 instead of 2018.
But given the cookie cutter mode of so much modern hip hop, which has relegated alternative and experimental approaches to the fringes, this rekindled formula still feels fresh and vital, and desperately needed to shake things up again.
Dr. Octagon is not a contemporary thing or a retro thing, Nakamura stated in the group’s press release, adding It’s always looked to the future.
This is true. The unhinged charms of Dr. Octagon have remained in its own hermetically sealed dimension from the beginning, and it’s a true delight to hear a new alien transmission, no matter how many light years it took to arrive.
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