Nachdem das neue Album der amerikanische Hip-Hop-Band um MC Dälek pandemiebedingt mehrfach verschoben wurde, steht “Precipice” nun – im Anschluss an die währened der vergangenen Monate ausgekoppelten Singles “Decimation (Dis Nation)”, “Boycott” und “A Heredic Inheritance” – offiziell in den Regalen. Das Album erscheint bei Ipecac Recordings in den gängigen Formaten. Im Anschluss touren Dälek von Ende Mai mit Mitte Juni zusammen mit Holy Scum durch insgesamt sechzehn europäische Städte – mit Wien gibt es auch einen Termin im deutschsprachigen Raum, im näheren Umland (Strasbourg, Brüssel, Prag) gibt es weitere Shows.
“Whether one considers the booming, echoed-out Oberhiem DMX drum beats that helped Run DMC’s “Sucker Mcs” usher in a new paradigm in Hip Hop or Public Enemy transforming Robert McCollough’s high-pitched sax squeal into a siren call for a new take on the politics of Black power, rap music has long employed noise as a weapon of rebellion. A renegade sound born from an outlaw culture, rap music has both historically and contemporarily pushed against established notions of musical acceptability. This sonic rebellion shows up in the form of absurdly loud 808s, speech elevated to the centre of a vocal performance or samples that are mangled and obscured beyond any possible recognition of their original source material. Coupled with its broad rejection of conventional social norms, the sound of rap music itself is un-extractable from its political stance. It is the music of the oppressed. A music where the fight for liberation plays out within the beats and rhymes itself.
For Union City, NJ-based duo, Dälek, this stance has taken the form of a brutal sonic temperament that pushes rap music’s capacity for noise and protest to some exhilarating conclusions. For their latest album, Precipice, Dälek unleashes a work that is practically bristling with fury and power. Stretched over 10 tracks, the production is among the heaviest in the group’s catalog with its dense, violent beats often giving way to gorgeous waves of texture and ambience. The album opens like the sounding of an alarm with “Lest We Forget”, a brief but captivating ambient piece pulsing within a thick coat of distortion.
Initiated before the outbreak of COVID-19, the group briefly put Precipice on hold before returning to inject a newer, more dynamic energy into the album’s songs. The result is a timely work, that is teaming with immediacy.” (Ipecac / Rarely Unable)