Daily Jam - Untitled Three

For the briefest of moments a decade ago, the future of hip-hop seemed on the verge of an avant-garde Renaissance thanks to a stream of original and interesting releases from the Anticon Collective, a group of musicians, rappers, and producers associated with independent Los Angeles record label Anticon. Albums from acts like Why?, Alias, Themselves, and others were threading hip-hop with layers of indie rock, post-rock, laptop electronica, and more, charting new territory until it became increasingly difficult to label any of the output as actual hip-hop. This was very evident on Anticon co-founder Odd Nosdam’s (David Madson) debut 2005 LP Burner, which really sounds more like a beautiful, humming sound collage than anything else.

Initially, I was drawn to the album due to Odd Nosdam’s association with Anticon and the band Why?, and to Mike Patton’s involvement on the song “11th Ave. Freakout Pt. 2.” And while that song is really great, the album’s highpoint is the beautifully lulling exhale of the Jessica Bailiff assisted “Untitled Three,” six minutes of slowed-down beats, vibrating synth tones, and cooing, psychedelic vocals. It sounds like waking up from a wonderfully surreal dream only to find that the whole world has transformed around you, funhouse-mirroring everything you thought was just in your head, warped dreamspace. Listening to the song, I can feel myself floating in an eternal sea, eyes closed as layer upon layer of light and cosmic radiation shower over me. It’s like moving through space and time, your physical form disintegrating while your consciousness expands and joins the infinite like Matheson’s shrinking man.

So yeah, it’s kind of trippy, but in a pretty and head-nodding way. Please excuse my pseudo-new ageism allegories above. I was listening to the song and just found myself in a groove.

“Untitled Three” practically begs to be listened to on headphones, a whole plethora of sounds and samples lurking beneath the melodic whir. Like the rest of the Burner LP, there is a very specific kind of headspace this music is meant to occupy. Put yourself in that space and float away.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.