Inventiveness. Originality. These are two important things in any creative medium. Alas, we, as consumers, are rarely treated to works that are imbued with those qualities. We plod along listening to the same old, same old. If you’re anything like me you’ll often find yourself thirsting for something to come along and sonically slap you out of the drudgery. Well, look no further. TARAACH’s ONE TWO EP is here to end boredom.
With a sub thirteen minutes run time you be thinking it’s too short to be an EP but TARAACH does more in twelve minutes than most artists do in their whole lives. The EP comes as one file which comprises all 8 tracks. That’s certainly one way to make sure that people, in the digital age, listen to your work. It’s like a digital version of a cassette album. If you want to listen to it you’re forced to listen to all of it or pay the hefty annoyance tax and try skipping about within the track. OK, it’s not an insurmountable obstruction but it’s a nice way for an artist to try and ensure you give their work the respect that’s due. It also means that you’ll be listening to it again and again and again.
If DOOM and El-P are way out there in front then TARAACH has parachuted in and tapped them on the back to let them know he’s joining the party. This EP bristles with energy. From the first seconds to the last, TARAACH grabs your attention. This is a whistle-stop tour of everything that’s fresh in hip hop. It’s something you need to hear. It’s like DOOM, El-P, Count Bass D, Edan and Jneiro Janel put their heads together and formed a hip hop Voltron. That’s not to say that TARAACH is a soundalike to those guys. My point is that I’d be ecstatic if I bought a new album by any of those guys and it sounded like this. TARAACH is up there with them. This guy can rock the mic and the boards which is what puts him amongst that distinguished group.
Sonically, this a whirling combo punch of searing synths, bitcrush, hard beats and adept rhymes. Guru told us it was all about the voice and TARAACH has definitely got a voice. I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. You can have all the linguistic gymnastics under the sun, moon and stars but if you don’t have the voice then your lyrical contortions are for nought. TARAACH has a strong, commanding voice that cuts through the track like a katana.
If you have any interest in this hop we call hip then you owe it to yourself to get this. Just make sure that you’re sitting down the first time you listen to it or you might get felled by the force of a true hip hop bomb.
The Author
