Choose Your Own Adventure psychedelic rap album [The Mole - Whir

The Mole: Whirlwind World [Review from Maui Time Weekly] In his first new solo work since 2002's Communion, The Mole offers up Whirlwind World ? hip hop's first "Choose Your Own Adventure" concept album. Here's the set-up: Your family home has been taken over by robots. "To turn and run outside to safety, skip to chapter 4," you are instructed between tracks. "Or, if you refuse to be displaced from your home by machinery, skip to chapter 6." It's a fantastic new way to present music. But even folks who are lazy on the interaction tip will dig Whirlwind World; it works just as marvelously as a straight-through listen, on account of The Mole's ever-inventive beats, frantically shifting delivery, and solid rhyme skills. Even more on this outing than on his previous records, The Mole's voice channels a whole barrelful of different monkeys. He's old school-ey dope on "Dysnomia," a 1980s-inspired jam in which he plays both Run and DMC, rapping with himself; in "Sparkly Things" he's a starry-eyed page, hoping to find the kindred souls who share his dreams; and in the cautionary "Problems," he's simply The Mole himself ? the guy we know from Communion. Whether dancing puppet or daring prophet, the many voices throughout the album allow him to express his multiple sides. Lyrics verge from the mischievous ? "What do you do with a drunken sailor? Shave his belly with a rusty razor" ? to the downright gorgeous: "We could be the first few grains in a brand new beach of sand." The between-tracks narrator of the adventure is The Mole's frequent partner-in-rhyme, Demune, last heard on the pair's Attack of the Zombie King album. Demune's delivery ? as the funky Crypt Keeper or the Vincent Price of hip hop ? is perfect. Other Hawai'i-based superstar guests range from indie rockers Hinterlander and Will The Moor to hip hoppers Terms None and Tyconichi to Japanese multimedia artist Ayaka Umeda. "This Is What Happens When My Thoughts Get Ahead Of Me" is the awesome lead single with Terms None, also available in fine remixed form on the Motion Recordings website (www.motionrecordings.com). Its rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness lays in stark contrast to a track like "Barren Hills," which places a simple harmonica loop and work song feel beneath lyrics adapted from a girl's lonely journal entry. It is contrasts like this with which the album brings to light the diversity of the human mind. One of the most brilliant moments of the album is "The Day Everything Changed," an atmospheric mini-epic about the day that humans begin to fly. Featuring a lovely guest spot by Chilean rapper dadaLU and a fantastic, "live" news brief by Tang Li Wheebs, the track is really funny but also strangely touching. As you listen, you believe the "sudden shift in human consciousness" that The Mole foresees is truly close. The track manages to pick your whole heart up and make you feel lighter, as if you're about to join the floating rappers despite your gravity. Clearly, the "adventure" theme he's chosen is fun and creative (plus you often get cooler options than the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books ever offered ? as you toss and turn on a cot, for example, your choices are to "sleep on your back" or to "sleep on your side") but the true pulse beneath Whirlwind World - the vein connecting its tracks ? is much deeper... Almost all the lyrics find The Mole aching to find light at the end of the tunnel, peace of heart in the chaos of life, hope in dark times, and company in isolation. Maybe that's why "The Day Everything Changed" is so memorable ? it's the moment where the shiny world he dreams of materializes. Whirlwind World closes with "Every Dream Is Born In Chaos," an instrumental that could soundtrack either a sad machine plodding on after life on the planet has ceased, or the sound of a new world being built. That's where the choice in this "Choose Your Own Adventure" really lays: in choosing our next reality. And as far as choosing our own listening experience goes, it's a rare album that can be heard as either a fun sci-fi/fantasy flick or a real journey through the dark night of the soul, depending on your mood. Whirlwind World manages to be timely and ahead of its time all at once. -Jojoboy

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deadbill (2007-12-29)

i want seed. D:

recalcit (2009-04-04)

Demune is awesome. I've been looking for more of his work. Please seed!