Those Hip-Hop Fisherman Blues

Glitch rock, folk hip-hop, blues, and a disconcerting since of played out evolution combine on Them Get You...Them Got You by jd walker. It's appropriate that his usual profession is being a fisherman from Maine; there's a clanking fish tackle stumble to the album and the location fits - it being the end of America in the East. The future of music seems to be with artists influenced by a poly glot of genres. This can a good thing, but it can also end up a gray mess of porridge. Them Get You...Them Got You falls somewhere in between; it's a serviceable craft and fairly seaworthy filled with the best artistic intentions.

He aspires to be part Johnny Cash and part Rakim, but can only reach the level of a Beck in Beck's laziest moments. This isn't a horrible thing. Hybrid styles can take some time to get used to and this album makes a slow lobster crawl with an emphasis on the ambient side. It's college radio progressive hip-hop intellectual electro-beat with murmured vocals and abstract poetry. Some highlights are "Nails Over Munjoy", "Since Saturday", Patients People", and "Them Get You...Them Got You Part 2." There are studio appearances from alias, bluebird, k-the-i, Sontiago, and lontime collaborator, producer and anticon co-founder sole. The album is available on Six Months Records.