I've got a few Dälek albums and would definitely buy more if I ever saw them in shops. In fact, all four Dälek albums I have are because I stumbled across them in record shops, and every single time I've seen a Dälek record in a shop I've bought it, so I guess I'm doing a reasonable job. Despite it sitting fairly far from the usual fare that Truck Store in Oxford stock, they've had the last two Dälek albums in stock when they came out, and I bought both. This is the former of those two.
As I mentioned before, Dälek play a very distinctive style of hip-hop, one that I enjoy in a number of ways - it's very dark and often minimal, but shares ideas with post-rock in how a song should grow and subtly work to overcome you, rather than relying on verse-chorus-verse. The rapping is key, but mostly as an instrument more than as words - half the time you'd be pushed to pinpoint exactly what he's saying. Masked Laughter (Nothing's Left) is a highlight - musically it reminds me of some of the soundscapes that Frank Delgado adds to Deftones, and the rapping is at the exact right point in the mix - lower than the music, but still loud enough to do justify to the fact that MC Dälek is rapping with far more vigour than usual. It Just Is finishes the album with the same energy.
At seven songs and just under 40-minutes, it's a good deal shorter than Abandoned Language and Endangered Philosophies, but these days I'm increasingly thinking that 40-minutes is the right length for an album and, to be honest, the fewer songs in that time, the more likely they are to appeal to my post-rock leanings. I have no idea if they have one album that everyone agrees is their best, but if I was recommending Dälek to anyone, of the four records I know, this would be the starting point I'd suggest.
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 7
Cost: £16 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 09/06/16
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code
