catalogue

KODE9 & THE SPACEAPE

BLACK SUN (HYPERDUB)

KODE9 & THE SPACEAPE - BLACK SUN 48855
format:
1 CD
release:
15.04.2011
label:
HYPERDUB
item ID:
48855
barcode:
5055300328434
It's been 5 years since South London based duo Kode9 & the Spaceape's debut album. On this new disc, named after Kode9's influential 2009 single 'Black Sun', the intensity and themes of their debut "mories of the future" remain, but the delivery is clearer and more rapid, the beats more jagged and restless.

Starting as a dense onslaught, 'Black Sun' proceeds to expand and contract its galaxy, sucking you into its orbit, and daring you to come and bathe in the warmth of its toxic glow.

Kode9 and the Spaceape explore an accelerated sonic fiction with this album. Spaceape verbally conjures up world under a "Black Sun"; his lyrics intimate an unknown time, that resonates strongly with the present, after an unclassified radioactive event has transformed the planet, much of which is now on fire.

Spaceape sends radio transmissions from this irradiated, scorched zone. His demeanor has changed.

Kode9 has tuned into him on a different frequency. Through the noise of crackling fires, rise the ominous drums of 'Black Smoke', an incantation exorcising demons hungover from their first album.

Reciting angular fictions of bodily breakdown and mutation (derived from his own experiences during the making of this record), confrontations with death, illicit, destructive love, crashing economies, hypocritical politics, failed revolts, underachieving gods and coded references to cartoon characters from the 1970s, Spaceape balances narrative and abstraction in his densely layered lyrics.

On three of the songs, the duo are joined by the yearning backing vocals of Shanghai based singer Cha Cha.

She first worked with them on the 2009 single 'Time Patrol'. Musically, Kode9 uses the album to develop his own innovations and strategies.

His neon noir synths sidestep fashionable 8bit novelty and avoid the forced euphoria of many of his contemporaries.

digipack CD is accompanied by 16 page artwork booklet. Lyric reproduction and illustration in the classic graphic novel style is inked by Raz 'Badawi' Mesinai.
 
  • Tracklisting
  • 1.1. BLACK SMOKE (FEAT. CHA CHA)
  • 1.2. PROMISES
  • 1.3. AM I
  • 1.4. LOVE IS THE DRUG (FEAT. CHA CHA)
  • 1.5. NEON RED SIGN (FEAT. CHA CHA)
  • 1.6. THE CURE (FEAT. CHA CHA)
  • 1.7. BLACK SUN (PARTIAL ECLIPSE VERSION)
  • 1.8. HOLE IN THE SKY
  • 1.9. OTHERMAN
  • 1.10. GREEN SUN
  • 1.11. BULLET AGAINST BONE
  • 1.12. KRYON (FEAT. FLYING LOTUS)