Two turntables and a microphone--and, a box load of old synths, a guitar, a four-track recorder and a crate of truly weird vinyl: that's the way it is with Minneapolis-based hip-hop project Fog. Forget all that equipment a second, though, because this is a one man band--the creation of Andrew Broder, a hip-hop fan frustrated by the genre's limitations, and determined to explode them. He came to Ninja Tune's attention through his ties to hip-hop surrealists cLOUDEAD, and this, his debut album, has much in common with that group's pioneering work: eerie soundscapes, feverishly weird turntable scratching, lyrics that walk the tightrope between genius and pretension and a total disregard for anything approaching formula. The gorgeous "Pneumonia" is a bare, confessional strum-a-long that could almost pass for a ramshackle early work by Badly Drawn Boy, while the likes of "Truth And Laughing Gas" come on like a punk-rock DJ Shadow, ripping up atmospheric beats and spitting them back in a riot of splintered breaks and wild scratch gymnastics. Dose One of cLOUDEAD even crops up with a guest lyric on "Glory". This is indie-rap as it should be done. --Louis Pattison
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