Download: Mediocre Infinity
Envy the Dead was arguably our most fully realized work, the product of many paranoid months of sonic and political explorations coinciding with the legal and emotional blowback from the George Bush album. Mac’s lyrics are at their best (I wish they were a little higher in the mix, so as to better showcase their complexity) and we were finding ways to push our sampler to its limits. I’d like to think that this album pretty much speaks for itself.
Side One:
Side Two:
Puny — previously under the working titles Egg and Crazy Caterpillar — was under construction at the time of David Mac’s 1996 death and was never finished, save for relatively advanced drafts of the backing tracks. Here they are.
1992 saw the appearance of two conjoined releases; in the process of recording the more conventional rap numbers for Envy the Dead, we found that we were taking a lot of pleasure in these instrumental tracks too, whether dancey or more meditative. Thus was born the idea of a dual release; the latter cuts made up Concentration Camp Muzak. Much of this was written and programmed at the Troost Palace in Kansas City; the recording and mixing happened at Studio K East in Pennsylvania, with the help of Handy Dan (so named for both his crash course in running a board and his ability to perform quick improvisational repairs on the VW bus that got us out there). Dallas Poague contributed the cover art for this and for Envy the Dead. Track listing is as indicated above. Tracks follow.
Recorded somewhere in KCMO during the hot summer of 1991, HIKGB was formative for the F-Kripz. The Secret Service checked in on us for this one. Musically speaking, we outsourced the production to Icy Roc and Frostbite — hence the distinctly different sound between this work and our others — and got some dusted guitar parts from a certain “Dr. Sweet Leaf.” The album is perhaps more notable for its historical/biographical import than for its aesthetic qualities. Nevertheless, a young David Mac had some creditable lines in here (and some probably best described as regrettable).
Following are a couple of the high points.
Spit was a grab-bag of beats we never got to use on other albums, prank calls, long audio extracts from the film Beat Street, stoney living room improvisations from a memorable and chilly fall evening in Minneapolis, and other detritus. Nevertheless, listening to it now I feel like it had a couple of transcendent and insightful moments, especially on the live cuts; however raw, they shine through better now, having had the most egregious filler trimmed. (I cut about 4 1/2 additional minutes of Beat Street dialogue while digitizing this, if that gives an idea of how bloated the original release was).
We envisioned the original Spit as an audio companion to issue three of the Envy the Dead zine. It was an extremely limited edition: 100 cassette copies, with numbered labels typed on a manual typewriter.
fargo planet 