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10/15/08
Restiform Bodies :: TV Loves You Back
Anticon
RATE: 3.5/5
Reviewed on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by Amorn Bholsangngam
Restiform Bodies certainly sounds like the Anticon group that it is. The familiar flow of twisted words that serve as social commentary and progressive yet minimalist MPC-created beats are prevalent on all tracks on their sophomore LP, TV Loves You Back. The sonic resemblance they bear to their Anticon peers comes as no surprise, considering two of its members (vocalist/MC Passage and instrumentalist/programmer Telephone Jim Jesus) have released solo records for the Bay Area indie hip hop label. However, the trio, which is rounded out by programmer Bomarr, has managed to carve out its own identity within the roster of likeminded art-hop musicians that they've found themselves a part of. Restiform Bodies may be one of the most consistently listenable artists on the label, due in large part to their willingness to craft hooks and counterbalance with their grittiness with a well-defined melody, a welcome departure from the dissonance and discordant sounds that many Anticon artists prefer. Passage demonstrates his versatility as a vocalist throughout the record, rhyming as confidently and compellingly as he croons. The musical backdrop created by Telephone Jim Jesus and Bomarr is expectedly dark and ominous yet surprisingly playful; their electro-flavored beats and post-punk-inspired synth lines sound like the soundtrack to a post-apocalyptic dance party. TV Loves You Back is the closest to pop that Anticon may ever come, a refreshing change of pace for listeners weary of the heavy, serious musical soliloquies that the label specializes in.
Source:
URB Magazine
Now that these shows with the WHY? band are done, I'm selling my "iPhone Beats" CD EP online direct through me.
It's 20 minutes, 10 songs, and made entirely on the iPhone. I think I'm going to only make a limited number of these. It was fun to do. Limited, as far as what you can do, but fun. -Bomarr
» Order Bomarr's new EP iPhone Beats here.
Restiform Bodies' long awaited follow-up and official Anticon debut! Lead vocalist Passage (who has the strangest deliveries next to Dose One) also on production alongside mad beat scientists Telephone Jim Jesus and The Bomarr Monk. The once thought to be defunct group re-unites for TV Loves You Back and their take on distaste for American consumerism. Oddly 80's-like hip hop mixed with speedy new techniques including live instrumentation over the heavily electronic trio's trademark space pop. This all might sound weird for non-listeners but it truly is an acquired taste that longtime fans have been waiting for!
Source:
Access Hip Hop
Anticon's reunited Restiform Bodies play the Echo tonight
by LA Weekly
October 10, 2008 12:57 PM
Though its constituent parts have continued to bless us with their solo forays into left-field beats, textures and raps, it's been over four years since Oakland's Restiform Bodies crew has played L.A. intact. The reunited trio — percussionist Bomarr, expert-in-ethereal Telephone Jim Jesus, and songbird/rapper Passage — appears at the Echo tonight in support of its just-released third album and Anticon Records debut, TV Loves You Back. Restiform was, in fact, the first outside act signed to the Anticon cooperative back in 2001 (for more on the label's history, check out this week's feature, "The Year That Anticon Became A Label"), but the group went on hiatus, instead releasing a series of increasingly strong solo efforts (see TJJ's Anywhere Out Of The Everything, Passage's The Forcefield Kids, and Bomarr's Freedom From Fightened Air). The new record is a squirming pile of their various obsessions that plays as a sometimes frightening, sometimes gorgeous po-mo mashup of new wave, dirty south and ambient styles. Check out Passage's Cronenberg-like lyrical hallucinations in person tonight [...]
—Chris Martins
Source:
LA Weekly
» Echoplex
show detail» Event @
Last.fm
10/09/08
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Restiform Bodies, point de ralliement entre influences hip hop, pop, et new wave, colle on ne peut plus à la marque de fabrique Anticon. Ni plus ni moins considérés comme des démos aujourd’hui, deux albums obscurs mais remarqués ont vu le jour en ce début de vingt et unième siècle, sans pourtant qu’ils ne soient tamponnés de cette fourmi noire, gage de qualité de l’époque que le groupe d’Oakland défendait pourtant haut et fort. Ainsi, depuis leur dernière sortie officielle en 2001, sept ans sont passés, pendant lesquels Telephone Jim Jesus, Bomarr et Passage, les trois bodies, y sont allés de leurs projets solo. De quoi enfoncer le clou et s’ouvrir en grand les portes du label d’Oakland pour enfin lancer sérieusement leur carrière collective avec «TV Loves You Back», un nouvel album réparant l’injustice d’être resté trop longtemps dans l’ombre des Sole, Dose One & Co…
D’autant que ce nouvel opus ne manquera pas de satisfaire les nostalgiques des premières années Anticon (l’excellent et ultra efficace «Panic Shopper»), quand la clique californienne ne cherchait pas à renouveler en vain un hip hop marginal essoufflé, et qu’elle ne divaguait pas ainsi vers des sonorités moins familières. Ici, Restiform Bodies rappelle plutôt à une poignée d’artistes, en telle quête de personnalité qu’ils s’y perdent parfois, qu’il vaut mieux rester à ce qu’on sait faire de mieux. Et le faire bien. Ainsi, incontestablement, c’est sur un hip pop de grande classe, et aux basses piquées à la ghettotech, que les trois se sont focalisés, en soignant une production qui souligne clairement toute la maturité gagnée ces dernières années.
Et les exemples sont nombreux tout au long de «TV Loves You Back». «Black Friday» renoue avec ce hip hop aiguisé, sombre et dense, quelque peu torturé et électrique, sur lequel Passage alterne flow et chant, que ce soit sur des envolées drum n’bass ou des couplets à l’atmosphère plus plombée. RB ouvre ainsi un bal aussi maîtrisé qu’inspiré, qui ne cessera de faire bonne impression, que ce soit sur «Foul» et sa RnB alternative, sur l’electro gothique «A Pimp-Like God», ou sur «Bobby Trendy Addendum» qu’El-P n’aurait pas renié si lui aussi osait de telles consonances eighties sur ses refrains. Mais Passage, loin d’avoir tout dit, va plus loin encore, surprend, comme lorsqu’il s’écarte radicalement de son registre sur «Opulent Soul» en prenant des aises de crooner digital inédites chez lui.
Pour ce premier pas tardif dans le grand bain, Restiform Bodies passe donc haut la main l’examen de passage avec un «TV Loves You Back» cohérent. La musique, comme le propos accusant le confort moderne d’être responsable du chaos actuel, parviennent systématiquement à s’équilibrer, et rattraper les petits défauts de l’autre. Du coup, on regoûte aux plaisirs du passé tout en écoutant un disque s’inscrivant résolument dans son époque. Incontournable sauf si, pour vous, il n’y a pas de hip hop au-delà de Snoop Dogg et 50 Cent…
Matthieu
06/10/2008
Source:
Bokson
