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The Anti-Pop Consortium were one of the most inventive underground hip hop crews that was formed by the trio of vocalists Priest, Beans and M. Sayyid in late 1997 along with producer E.Blaize. As their name implies, with a background in the New York street poetry scene, they wanted to be the anti-dote to commercial hip-hop.

With feet in both hip hop and IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) camps, they signed to Warp Records who were best known at the time for electronic artists such as Aphex Twin or Autechre. APC split in August 2002 to pursue other projects, most notably Beans’ Tomorrow Right Now and Shock City Maverick on WARP Records, but it seemed inevitable (to fans at least) that they would eventually reform; and they did in August 2007.

The opening track, ‘Lay Me Down’ shows that they’ve lost none of their lyrical dexterities or inventive flow (“getting low on some Guinness’es, while the beat never finishes”) while the death metal guitar intro is not reflective of the album as a whole.

Stand-out tracks are the singles ‘Apparently’ and ‘Volcano’ (the latter came with remix from someone we haven’t seen since I caught him on a night out at the Tenori-On launch night, Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet), that is apart from last years’ NYC album) but they could have picked ‘C Thru U’ (vampires seem to be all the rage these days) or ‘Shine’ or the broken-flava-scratch of ‘New Jack Exterminator’; but really, you could put a case forward for any of the 17 tracks crammed on the album.

‘Reflections’ is on a big beat that blows up at the end but if you’re after a big bang, ‘Timpani’ is it with its own sci-fi movie theme (check the cover). And these guys still have a bent for the unexpected like the “android-soul” of ‘The Solution”.

That rock guitar solo gets re-used on ‘Born Electric’ which doesn’t work for me but their experimental approach on ‘End Game’ certainly does and arguably, they save the best until last with the title track that’s dark and scary like a swarm of locusts (in terms of feel, it’s in the same ball park as the forthcoming King Cannibal album Let The Night Roar).

Big Dada’s ‘Uncle’, Roots Manuva guests on ‘NY To Tokyo’ that’s very electro-dance and yet another killer track and on the downtempo, ‘Superunfrontable’ is ripe for your beats mixtape for maximum reactions.

Fluorescent Back is further evidence that APC can fuse hip-hop with all their absorbed avant-garde influences. Unofficially subtitled “Dreamwork is Teamwork”, that got me thinking, if can’t have you’re own underground dream team of hip hop (say, Busdriver, Aesop Rock and Juice Aleem), you need Anti-Pop Consortium on top form. And they are!

The other thing about APC, they always looked good and had great cover artwork; and they still do at Big Dada, this album is a suitable tribute to the label and APC themselves; a must have as it’s schedulled to erupt like a volcano.

Reviewed: Anti-Pop Consortium - Fluorescent Black (Big Dada) Cat. No. BDCD150 Release date: 29th September 2009
Tracklisting:
1 Lay Me Down (3:55)
2 New Jack Exterminator (4:24)
3 Reflections (3:30)
4 Shine (2:29)
5 C Thru U (2:12)
6 Volcano (3:08)
7 Timpani (4:11)
8 The Solution (3:22)
9 Get Lite (3:30)
10 NY To Tokyo featuring Roots Manuva (3:28)
11 Superunfrontable (4:04)
12 Born Electric (3:03)
13 Apparently (2:30)
14 End Game (2:20)
15 Capricorn One (3:12)
16 Dragunov (1:30)
17 Fluorescent Black (4:56)

Links:
www.antipop.tv
www.myspace.com/antipopny
www.ninjatune.net