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(Red Ink/Sony)
Message at the Depth (Shinso) is the follow up album to the 2001 triumph of Zen, the seventh masterpiece to be delivered by Japan’s DJ Krush. Nothing that can be said in the body of this review will do this or any other Krush release justice; his music defies a lot of elements, words being one of them. The music of this album speaks a thousand words.
As far as thematics are concerned this album couldn’t have been released at a more appropriate time. Centred on the notion of truth, Message at the Depth, seeks to comment on the shattering of hopes; the hope for the new dawn that surfaced in Zen, which was severed circa September 11. Politically inclined and truthfully spoken; Message at the Depth seeks peace and truth throughout, but not before overt political statements are made in the process; entering the album with his anti-war sentiments and dissent.
Musically, like the albums that have come before, Message at the Depth is a genreless beauty. Although labelled as a hip-hop DJ/Producer, Krush’s music fails to be categorized as far as the ear is concerned; rearranging the “traditional” constituents of the hip-hop sound and morphing them with dark downside beats, lofty jazz rhythms, scratches and a touch of reggae.
The abstract, haunting instrumental Trihedron, featuring Opus, opens the album with a slight off-beat dark, jungle feel, before the toughness of Toki No Tabiji (Journey of Time) enters; possessing quite an unusual flavour with guest Japanese rapper Inden delivering the piece entirely in Japanese – the effect, sharp and solid. From the beautifully titled Sanity Requiem to Supreme Team featuring Anti Pop Consortium on the mic, Krush maintains a lurking, dark edge, which persists right through the middle of Blackhole; a superbly crafted bass-heavy, spatially afloat, jagged and eerie number, full of quirky percussive sounds that take you to the heart of the blackhole.
Song for John Walker, listen after listen, remained the most prominent track from the album, with Anticon waxing the lyrical; definitely the most overt politic number of them all, the vocals layer with the music to tell the story of “empire guilt”. Anticon is phenomenal on this track, but the structure of the track is even more so; very textured and three dimensional with sounds dropping in and out – a powerful number to say the least. “What is it with all these men in their fifties wanting to win the world over, like there’s no tomorrow already?” Yes. D’you Hear That? follows, highlighting the importance of space, silence and the positioning of sounds in Krush’s work, before the second most prominent track emerges: Alepheuo (truthspeaking). This track, which also appears on an mpeg clip on the album, features the vocalist Angelina Esparza another beautiful addition; soft, simple, melancholic beats and melodies intertextualize the daunting words of Esparza. “The institution you attend and all the clones that you befriend just seem to finalize your end-eh eh”.
The live instrumentation shines through on this album – the wind, the strings – float through your sensory system. Following, The Lost Voices show off Krush’s turntablist skills with the scratching standing as the focal point and the next killer of a track comes close to finalizing the album with that raw jazzy sound that has become synonymous with Krush’s title – But the World Moves On featuring instrumentalists D-Madness & Masoto Nakamura. Finally, closing with the reggae influenced vocals of Abijah on What about tomorrow.
Let it be; this album is definitely the message at the depth. A raw inspiring array of sounds that will have any music enthusiast buried in the burrows of Krush’s mind.
