Sine The Avalanches crossed the turntablist line, Curse ov Dialect are probably the most successful hip-hop act to come out of Australia. While the unnaming, political backpacker lyrics of Raceless, Vulk Makedonski, August 2, and Atarungi don’t exactly place them at the head of their field, their collaborative production work with beatsmith Paso Bionic – whose solo debut was released by Elefant Traks early last year – puts the Melbourne collective squarely in the upper echelon of indie hip-hop worldwide. The variety of sounds used to make their beats borders on insane genius: “Burn Me Slowly” gives a post-rock beat a twist of violins; “Take Me To The Arab World” mashes the Middle East; and “Jokes On Me” brings hip-hop some opera with slight tastes of Asia and Looney Tunes. In fact, the sheer ingenuity of the beats tends to make the comparatively standard rhymes more obvious. It seems like their plan is to fit as many words and ideas into each song as possible, when less would most likely be more. As is, the rhymes are simply outclassed by the production. Full marks for the Bill Hicks sample in “Strawberries,” though.
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