DÄLEK
Precipice (Ipecac)
Alternative rap troupe Dälek have been shouting into the volcano since 1998 and are currently down to a duo: founder MC Dälek and co-producer Mike Mare forging the beats from the extremes of sound. Alternating between hide-behind-the-sofa noise and corroded beauty, if you’ve not heard Dälek before, they make Shabazz Palaces sound like The Fat Boys, with their collage of Public Enemy’s militant noise and 4AD shoegaze experimentalism.
After waves of MBV feedback roll across instrumental opener Lest We Forget, sheets of metallic guitar explode in the sky as Dälek spits rhymes on Decimation (Dis Nation). The intensity of the title track teeters at the brink of rap, while Incite (“on the frontline of black and brightness”) will terrify the masses.
The melancholy slate grey beats of Endtroducing-era DJ Shadow drive Harbingers, and Devotion (When I Cry The Wind Disappears) sounds like an urban Cocteau Twins slowed down to the point of oblivion. Dälek is the malevolence of your guilty conscience, the righteous anger of a mob on the brink of anarchy, and noise terrorists with complete faith in their cause.
words CHRIS SEAL