They’re the avant-garde mashup darlings of the interweb. Thanks to R, I was drawn in some time ago by a track from their “Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots” work, which blended The Flaming Lips with Public Enemy’s “By the time I get to Arizona” and fragments of MLK speech. We quickly got hold of the “Never Trust Originality” EP, which is every bit as awesome.

I picked up another 2 sets last night, “From Detroit to J.A.” and “A Night at the Hip-Hopera”. The former I haven’t tried out all of yet, but the latter is a mix of classic Queen tracks and modern rap/hip-hop from the likes of KRS-1, Kelis, ODB, De La Soul, Eminem Vanilla Ice, Aaliyah, Beastie Boys, Missy Elliott and a pile of others, not to mention clips from Aqua Teen Hunger force, Mallrats, and other such pop culture faves. I hear there was or is a scrap with Disney over the rights to the Queen music, though I don’t know details. Whatever though, the tunage is, for the most part, quite good. I skipped a few tracks, mostly because there are a number of Queen songs I don’t like at all.

Anyway these guys are something close to the ultimate musical expression of our generation — full of references that appeal to our endless love for trivia, plenty of beats and clever, non-obvious pairings which produce often surprising and exceptional new forms, all spewed over the net for your consumption.

The tunes are available via bittorrent linked from the Kleptones’ home page, so it’s all quite legit. I highly recommend all you kiddies check them out.

They also run a blog which I’ve linked to the right there, under Music, which has some worthwhile, if infrequently refreshed, material.

Tuesday, February 8th, 2005 @ 1:04 pm Bands, etc, Music, Records
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