Evergrowing rap collective billion o’clock and esoteric beatmaster Grosso Gadgetto drop their globetrotting collaborative album ‘ASTRO TRAVAIL’. Sporting vocals recorded around the UK, as well as contributions flown in from Stockholm (Vladimir Leanin) and Seattle (Zebadiah Witch) and assembled in Grosso’s studio hideout somewhere in France, this is the moment the mysterious billion corps goes international.
A kaleidoscope of voices spin twisted sci-fi imagery and poignant shots of self medication, nesting alongside G-Punk braggadocio and obscure pop culture gags… all unified by Grosso’s brilliant yet blackhole dense production. His instrumentals, composed specifically for the billion crew to inhabit thrum with a labyrinthine intelligence of their own.
Beats fizz and writhe like electric tentacles through a grimy tenement block. A nonplace where unsettled souls murmur in the walls and the laws of physics can flip without warning. Caustic, layered loops pummel from all directions, sometimes unfurling into oddly beautiful songs with a deftness that’s sure to evoke the mid 00s sonic triumphs of Dälek and El-P… yet Grosso’s aproach to sound is very much his own.
While there are nods to what has come before ASTRO TRAVAIL draws its own blueprint, dreamlike and visceral. An infernal, towering project of skewed Escher logic born from the humming hivemind of the billion emcees. Out now on Solium.
Purchase Cassette: Billion O’Clock & Grosso Gadgetto – Astro Travail
Joyful Union Cassette Resource 