Odd Nosdam

Pretty Swell Explode

[anticon.; 2008]

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Styles: Dr. Sample sneezes after inhaling dictaphone dust and vinyl residue
Others: Hood, Boards of Canada, cLOUDDEAD
Links: Odd Nosdam - anticon.

Old reliable anticon. beat-maker Odd Nosdam delivers a two-disc set of remixes and B-sides — an odds-and-ends collection, an aggregate as convoluted as the tracklist and song details. Titles are often parenthetical, capitalization is in a snarl, and featured guests blend in with omnipresent mainstays. It’s a hodgepodge of information and ephemera that parallels Nosdam’s distinct collage style.

I tip my press-card-bearing derby hat to David Madson for being the sole survivor of an O.G. anticon. aesthetic. Where others have drifted wildly, he has maintained ethics in D.I.Y. creation and classicist hip-hop production. Odd Nosdam is bona fide, proven time and again. There are the little things — instances — that stand out: the hearsay of him punching Sole in the face upon their first meeting; the way he sat cross-legged on the floor at a show in Brownies two days before 9/11, glaring at me as he manipulated his Dr. Sample. The man seems legit in every thought and action.

Pretty Swell Explode is more of the same from Nosdam, which is a good thing. It’s a pretty swell collection of ambient tunes, gruff numbers, and static-y collage pieces. In Nosdam’s world, nothing is rejected (despite the indication of earlier album titles). His songs, which are more like vignettes, range in intensity from a Cincinnati chinchilla mauling to Cincinnati sine waves massaging the temples. Good to skate to, as headphone material, or to bump at a small gathering.

Disc 1: 1. Untitled Three (JB’s OG Mix) 2. Don’t Come Down Here (blasted remix) – Serena-Maneesh 3. Freshman Remix – Thee More Shallows 4. D.C. (bit) – Boards of Canada 5. Hollow Me 6. No Good (nosdam’s dub) - Skyrider 7. (growin up in the Hood) Four Thousand Style - Bracken 8. Wreck Time 9. Ligaya (remix) – Alias & Tarsier 10. Untitled Sketch (w/ Jessica Bailiff) 11. Forever Heavy (shoegangster/JB remix) – Black Moth Super Rainbow

Disc 2: 1. Cut 2. Perfectly Pink Path (for Dax) 3. My Prayer Rug 4. Bear Hug 5. Dayvan Cowbody (remix) – Boards of Canada 6. 20th

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