Bigg Jus - Black Mamba Serums v2.0
Damn this is a weird one. from the ashes of ubercool underground hip hop collective Company Flow come this first solo album by Big Justoleum Lune aka Bigg Jus.
This album has a story that goes something like this :
Album recorded.
Ready to release 9/11/2001.
Then the world changed forever.
Subsequently, the album in its original guise never hit the shelves. So, Bigg Jus along with Orko Elohiem (NMS - Nephilm Modulation Systems) started about revisiting the tracks and taking things in a very different direction both in style and lyrical content, until we eventually got to this album release (ie v2.0). Alongside the normal 13 tracks are 23 full mp3 which make up the original album and various remixes and b-sides. That makes this release a lot to absorb. I haven't even started on the extras yet, as the normal album is a set of dark and heavy beats with mad freestyle type lyrics and is not an easy album to get into.
There is no radio friendly track, no big name guest spots, no commerically aware r-n-b crossover, instead the loops are sombre, sonically highly experimental as well as sounding downright angry in many places. But, there is something that keeps me coming back to this album, and with each revisit I find myself being fascinated by the mood and the sheer originally that is contained within.
The albums highlight has to be 'Kingspitter', an intensely hard hitting track with its bass synth line inducing headphone discomfort and lyrics being forced out against the unsettling soundtrack, along with 'Silver Back Mountain' with its broody piano stabs and scratching, movie samples and found voices making the album a serious listen 'dark days ahead', a prophetic statement set to a head nodding beat. Unfortunately not ever track is as successful as Big Juss and gang stray too far into experimental mode and forget to make everything listenable as there are some tracks that just don’t gel until the 5th listen, the mad off the wall vocal flow of 'I Triceratops' can become tiresome and difficult to get all the way through, and this isn't helped as the track is followed by 'The Story Entangles' which features an uncredited female vocal all cut-n-looped to a cut up beat, very disjointed and recalls the down tempo stuff that Nicollette released a few years ago which is also very hard to actually enjoy. Luckily these 2 hard going tracks are followed by the relatively light weight 'You Must Be Sniffin' getting the
album back on its surreal track, thus settling the rest of the album set in motion with its collection of weird samples, slow-n-low beats, anti-chillout ambience and non-melodic verbal flow.
Reading the above you may be thinking that this album is one to avoid, well you'd be wrong, there are certain times and moods that demand an album should challenge the listener, and its is good that record labels release these albums that require more than 3 listens to hear the songs properly in this fast-paced-no-filler-allowed world. Not everything has be be instant, straight to the central nervous system beats with its programmed for success chord changes, sometimes its good to dig in a little deeper, feel the artists emotions, reflect upon the lyrics, forcing the listener to absorb an album over a longer period of time and let the sound permeate slowly over a length of time, and, when that urge hits I shall be reaching out for this album. I think.