i try not to dwell on anything i encounter when browsing flood’s twitter notifications, whether it be the idiocy of a user quote-retweeting asking questions clearly addressed in the article or more insidious trolling of mine or our writers’ work. but one type of guy i tend to attract is a normy who thinks he has a vaster knowledge of music than the editor of a literal music publication merely because i call something “weird.” it happened when i blurbed the alex g record in 2019 for our best albums list (“it’s not weird it’s just actual Alternative music” this guy informed me before telling me to check out elliott smith). it happened again the following year when i wrote up the clipping. record for our 2020 list (this guy tried calling me out for referring to the group as daveed’s “moonlighting gig”—as if the man celebrity-endorsed doordash on a super bowl ad spot based off the success of his harsh-noise rap group about gruesome murder and evil spirits instead of all that others stuff).
the fact is that i am very aware of elliott smith, and my best guess as to why i’ve never gotten into his music is because to my knowledge he never did bizarre little butt dances onstage between songs sung from the perspective of a pet. i’ve always been drawn to oddity and novelty in music far more than i have lyrical beauty and technical acumen, and it felt like kismet when i discovered deathbomb arc after the returns began diminishing on my brief obsession with hellfyre club, a more intellectual though in retrospect no less immature alternative to odd future.
speaking of lists, i don’t recall what this was or how i landed on it, but in 2016 i discovered some blog’s year-end roundup of seemingly one person’s favorite albums. i now realize that seemingly 90% of them were released by DBA (though i do also remember discovering AJ suede from this writeup), but each new name i encountered—jpegmafia, hareld, true neutral crew—felt like an entire universe unto itself, which each derailed my ongoing exploration of busdriver and open mike eagle deepcuts as i strained to discover where these artists fit into any broader musical conversations. i guess with a few notable exceptions, i’m still trying to figure that out.
since then i’ve gone deep on several of the artists presently and formerly signed to the label, yet an interesting development occurred while taking an even more in-depth look over the past few months: deathbomb arc began as, always was, and continues to be first and foremost a label for left of left of leftfield electronic music that’s equal parts deeply goofy and legit rave soundtrack. i guess it feels like a logical extension of girl talk, whatever on earth gil mantera’s party dream was, and other early-’10s crazy-ass-whiteboyisms: captain ahab’s EDM opera explicitly spelling out conditions for why its protagonist does not have a dick, gabbertree’s speedcore opus building up to a cathartic needledrop of whitney’s “i will always love you,” and more recently, uh, whatever you could possibly classify BBBBBBB as. even the straighter party tracks are juiced with hilarious lines that catch you off guard about how the irresponsible-teen narrators’ moms are all drunk, promiscuous, or dead.
DBA is first and foremost an experimental electronic label, but i would assume that daveed diggs’ (whose clipping. bandmates include jonathan snipes—a.k.a both captain ahab and one half of gabbertree with labelhead brian miller) longtime involvement with various projects naturally led to an influx of rap signees around the mid-’10s, which has since ebbed (due in part to many of these artists graduating to major labels and more well-known indies) while projects like angry blackmen are still holding things down for the label’s noise-rap legacy. i guess what i’ve learned lately is that between the over-the-top electronic experimentation and confrontational raps, the label’s one major throughline is that listening to any of their releases while trying to get literally anything else done is like shooting free throws while those inflatable sticks are clapping behind the backboard.
this is all to say that i loved this label ever since i discovered it 8 years ago and i’m still discovering new stuff either released by or in some way connected to DBA to this day. i went ahead and listed some recommendation below, but be forewarned—and this is absolutely true—that when my spotify playlist i built to conduct much of this research ended it would occasionally autoplay a track called “washing machine (loopable)” from an LP titled sleep aid: household appliances & machines.
canon
signor benedick the moor, el negro (2013) keeping this blurb short since i’ve already managed to talk about this album twice in this newsletter: “throw everything at the wall for 70 minutes and see what sticks” type conceptual project seemingly inspired by danny brown and foreshadowing rxk nephew all woven together with emotive yet often silly rapping, gothic guitar-based instrumentals (there’s shredding!), pop-punk-goes-country, screamo, and field recordings—yet somehow just about all of it works. there are loogies hocked. even the loogies work.
various, evil II (2016) as much as i’ve enjoyed picking apart DBA comps (there are many) for the individual tracks, this release is both front-to-back heat and a weirdly cohesive album that chronicles the label first finding its footing as an incubator of aggressive hip-hop and industrial pop (to say nothing of the great digi-horror van gogh LP cover). not only does it include an incredible early non-album jpegmafia cut but the tracks from the relatively unknown donny murakami and ka4sh bang unbelievably hard, while a lot of the more toned-down electronic stuff (introduced with jonathan snipes’ ’80s crimewave/flute intro) manages to tie it all together. i have a visceral memory of blasting “father stretch my bands” in my friend’s barely functional hand-me-down minivan driving back from a botched interview with amazon in the suburbs for which i had to sign an NDA. you’re welcome to ask me any follow-up questions about that.
jpegmafia, black ben carson (2016) prelude to veteran, jpeg’s last album as an underground rapper before blossoming into some weird and beautiful pop star. always preferred this one to its successor perhaps because it was my intro to his work (it literally opens with shots fired at drake and burzum while paying homage to b l a c k i e and das racist—the artists who got me into noise and the concept of listening intently to lyrics-heavy rap tapes that span 70 minutes, respectively) even if it sags a bit in the middle. i remember at the time wishing there were more songs with aggressive beats like the title track but listening now it’s the softer, eerier moments i miss in his current era of having a confident vocal range—the dreamy ai aso guitar sample paired with audio of a cop eating lead on a track literally called “i just killed a copy now i’m horny,” or the atmospheric R&B “boi” (which introduced me to butch dawson). if nothing else, calling three consecutive tracks—to say nothing of their respective subject matter—“black ben carson,” “black steve austin,” and “black stacey dash” is extremely funny.
(note: i did bag that jpeg interview a year later, though it was definitely a very different conversation than i’d initially intended on having with him)
lana del rabies, shadow world (2018) still not sure how legitimate the “death industrial” genre tag is but in my mind that term applies to anything that remotely resembles lana del rabies—producer of heaving, repetitive, anxiety-inducing industrial-electronic instrumentals occasionally paired with clipped harsh noise, calm incantations, and isolated black-metal screams (and not, as the celebrity-misnomer moniker implies, a bro-y early-’10s chillwave musician). type of album that gets better as it goes on maybe not so much because it’s backloaded but because it’s creating tension til you get to the deeply unsettling “repose,” which feels to me like the lost highway scenes in the madisons’ unlit hallways. not the scariest part of that movie but if LDR made an album that sounds like mystery man for 40 minutes i think i’d pass out midway through. or worse, turn into balthazar getty.
they hate change, now and never again (2018) first THC encounter and possibly still my favorite between the smooth instrumentals and the post-track audio of andre and vonne earnestly geeking out on different synth models. little bit darker than their post-DBA career if only in the sense that it’s less playful-shit-talk-y about touring with the homies courtney b and lucy dacus and doesn’t give the impression they’re a particularly engaging live act, though i think it hints at their future as the rap equivalent to that early-’10s moment of overly positive heavy rock music seemingly inspired by andrew wk where fang island and diarrhea planet briefly existed as some psyop to make indie rock fun again and encourage audiences to share their earnest joy in making music.
ed balloon, the dubs (2019) a little hot-and-cold on ed’s music probably because the neo-soul movement he aligns with doesn’t do much for me, but between the guest verses on this LP—open mike eagle and an S-tier they hate change feature on the same track; j dilla’s brother, weirdly—and the consistently surprising places his voice goes on each track i’ve revisited this quite a bit. “saint” and the too-many-cops soft-dirge “square up annie” are dreamy, “mayday” is the most joyful piece of music i’ve ever heard—real shame he seems to have blown up as a figure within the NFT scene (if such a thing exists?) rather than as a musician.
debby friday, death drive (2019) peak debby—perfect balance of shit-talk club music, freaky death-industrial whirring, and frightening ambient murder spirituals slowly unwinding into opaque spoken-word philosophizing on the subject. includes features from lana (not del rey) and chino (not moreno).
angry blackmen, talkshit! (2019) seems like there’s two pretty distinct eras of this group split between two different production partners, and as much as i love the new LP i think the more abrasive wendigo instrumental style better suits my interests. in retrospect it doesn’t always feel like quentin and brian feel built for this dark, hardcore-glitch energy even when their vocals match that intensity and i would say it’s probably telling of my own immaturity that “stanley kubrick” doesn’t quite live up to the tracks where they name drop paul blart and billy & mandy.
various, arc mountain (2021) comp with fellow weirdcore label hausu mountain which somehow features artists from both labels collaborating on each track and going full-freak without diminishing either representative’s personality. i always think of that dos monos track where they rap over black midi (in a much more concrete way that injury reserve did a few years later) as the ultimate testament of dexterity for a rapper, but nearly every song on here where a DBA emcee glides over a digital-nonsense beat feels equally impressive.
canonization pending
clipping. only demoting clipping. to this section due to the fact that i’ve technically only spent time with their sub pop albums. early stuff smokes as well, not to mention all of daveed’s guest appearances throughout the label’s catalog.
cooling prongs, “verbicide” falls under the captain ahab category of engagingly weird instrumental and upsettingly weird lyrics (something about getting jizz in your sinuses?). literal knife-being-sharpened type beat.
gang wizard, “clyde’s ballad” began this listening project shortly after publishing a piece on shitgaze, so i was thrilled to learn that one of the loosely-defined movement’s prominent figures released a bunch of their music on DBA. sort of an outlier but i suppose this is technically a form of noise.
j fisher, “pirate bay” sounds like earl if he lost all of his followers while venturing into chiptune instead of gaining a bunch of listeners by unguardedly expressing his grief. you’ve got a j-fisherer in me, jeremy.
miguel mendez, “too drunk to breathe” another outlier among core artists on the DBA roster: an earnest alt-country outlet for the guy who played keys in love as laughter.
p.e.e., “mexico” equally outlier-y: straightforward pop-punk from a band called pee!
robedoor, “execution myth” endless loops of trancey and increasingly layered electronic droning. this is what it sounded like when i tried booting up my last PC.
rose for bohdan, “before the bible” noise-rockier take on gang wizard fronted by brian miller (raving) and featuring miguel mendez on guitar (shredding).
rrope, “stop it” post-primus mathy noise rock that’s interesting in and of itself but i’m including it here because this song eerily feels explicitly interpolated by chat pile for “grimace”?
thx1213, “buck you thru that badge” possibly the artist i’m most excited about discovering through this exercise: intense digital hardcore project entirely about decapitating and arsoning pigs. incredible commitment to the bit—love the song title “hardcore will never die (unlike cops who will).”
true neutral crew, “modern art” another interlabel collab (this time between miller, diggs, and I.E.’s margot padilla) with plenty of feature spots for THC, SB, etc. not sure if the release “modern art” is on is DBA, but this is the track that got me hooked—daveed rapping over circular saws years before billy and elucid.
viper venom, “skeletor” pre-jpeg era hip-hop cut laying the groundwork for horrorcore raps referencing, about, or even sampling sword-and-planet media franchises.