ANTI-POP CONSORTIUMShopping Carts Crashing Record label: Nippon Crown (Japan) Format: CD Release date: May 2001 Shopping Carts Crashing actually surpasses Tragic Epilogue in terms of both lyrical content and production value. Anti-Pop Consortium is a well-oiled machine, exploring lyrical realms that few are ready to deal with. Like Sun Ra, it's clear that Beans believes that space is the place. Priest has fine tuned his cranial wordplay to be a tad bit more down to earth, which in turn makes his verses hit your dome harder. And M. Sayyid is more important to this group than most realize. Perhaps considered the "hood" of the three, his whole style is elusive, and he has the last laugh on you every time. Consider the chorus from his solo joint, "Cats Locked Out": "The game flips dunk shot twist double feature / now I gotta take ya through the maze in a beaker / creatures and freak o' natures sliding through the speaker / cats locked out…bananas in the bleachers." All three are just as adept behind the boards as they are on the mic - check out the rhythmic cacophony unleashed by Priest on "New York." However, Earl Blaize is still the king of head nods for Anti-Pop. He's behind three of the tightest cuts on the album: "Angular," "M," and "Verses" (featuring Apani B-Fly Emcee, one of the most charismatic sisters ever to pick up a microphone). And for geeks like me that try to decipher everything they're saying, the CD includes a lyric sheet in both English and Japanese. That's worth the import price alone. {downtempo don}
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