 by Steve McPherson
Attention MTV and whoever came up with the idea of mashing up Jay-Z and Linkin Park, Ludacris and Sum 41: combining rap with rock is about as innovative as putting together peanut butter and jelly. Like any bright new idea, when Run DMC and LL Cool J sampled heavy metal guitars, rap-rock had enough novelty to survive on that alone. But by the time Ludacris appeared on Saturday Night Live with Sum 41 in tow a year ago, the casket was already in the ground and Rick Rubin was throwing dirt on it. To survive and evolve, a musical revolution has to have staying power. The wartime consiglieri (say, the Beastie Boys in this case) might give way to incompetent boobs who go mad with power (say, Fred Durst), but once the wake is over, it’s time for brave, necromantic souls like 13&God to sneak out to the graveyard, dig up the decrepit Frankenstein corpse of rap-rock and breathe spooky, eerie life into that unholy combination—for the second time.
Download an mp3 of 13&God’s song “Men of Station.”
In this case, the mash-up isn’t so much metal or hard rock and blinged
out gangsta rap as it is po-mo German glitch pop and confessional, literary,
helium-voiced emo-rap. If you want to put names to faces, that means members
of the Notwist teaming up with Anticon’s rap trio themselves to make a
self-titled, self-assured (if sometimes inconsistent) debut. The Anticon label
has spawned and nurtured a roster that bears similarities to our very own Rhymesayers;
Artists like Sage Francis and themselves (whose members, Jeffrey “jel”
Logan, Adam “doseone” Drucker and Dax Pierson make up half of 13&God)
are already experts at stretching and kicking at the boundaries separating hip-hop
from neighbors like electronica and spoken word. Dose’s collaborations
with producer Boom Bip, in particular on tracks like “Mannequin Hand Trapdoor
I Reminder,” have yielded oddly melodic hip-hop that’s, dare I say
it, downright beautiful. Those of you familiar with dose and jel know what I
mean, but if you’re not, hearing dose’s strangled, multi-tracked
and occasionally childlike voice takes a little getting used to, but as it turns
out, it’s an ideal marriage with the aesthetics of the Notwist, whose
Markus and Micha Acher and Martin “Console” Gretschmann form the
other half of 13&God.
German po-mo pop rocksters the Notwist began life as something distinctly different,
which anyone who enjoyed 2003’s Neon Golden and picked up their
debut record can attest to.  Asked
via e-mail whether it was a conscious or more organic evolution from goth-y
noiserock to glitch-y noisepop that their half of 13&God has gone through
over the years, Acher replies, “It was conscious and organic, because
we started to [listen to] more and more different music and tried to integrate
it into our music. In the beginning we were big fans of American bands like
Dinosaur Jr, the Lemonheads or Minor Threat, but then we soon got interested
in electronic music, experimental and noise-music, jazz and so on. We didn’t
want to become a total fusion-band, that plays everything (and everything bad),
so we looked for elements that fit into our own music.”
It’s a good thing from the perspective of anyone who’s experienced
the Notwist’s transcendentally lovely and spare Neon Golden and it’s
also what allows such a seamless dovetail joint to be crafted between their
music and themselves’ own. “We met at a themselves show in Munich
and became friends afterwards,” writes Acher regarding the origin of the
project. “We discovered that we were fans of each other’s music
and that we share similar ideas and philosophies concerning music [and] art.
We stayed in contact ever since and met again on a Notwist tour in the U.S.,
where we played two shows together. This was so much fun that we decided to
play a whole tour together and record some songs.”
It’s important to remember that English is not Acher’s native language,
and he’s doing a much better job at answering these questions in English
than I could at asking them in German. “[I]t’s difficult and strange,”
he says of writing songs in a non-native language, “but I grew up with
music with English lyrics, so I never thought about it when I wrote my first
song. It was the language of pop music for me. Now I’ve thought a lot
about it and I think it makes me very limited, but it also offers me possibilities
of using language different[ly] than native speakers do, which is a special,
more unconscious way to poetry. I don’t try to sound like a native speaker;
I want to stumble through the English language and maybe find some truth by
saying it differently.”
 The
collaboration process with themselves seems to have proceeded smoothly despite
the language barrier, and in large part this seems due to a mutual respect and
understanding of the other’s musical paradigm. “I was always interested
and listening, but not the biggest expert,” writes Acher with regard to
hip-hop. “But labels like Anticon, Stones Throw, Lex and artists like
MF Doom, Madlib, themselves (of course) and others made me buy a lot of hip-hop-related
records [over] the last [few] years. And with the help of Adam [Drucker] and
Jeff [Logan], there’s a lot of great older stuff that I[’ve] start[ed]
to discover now.”
With common ground established, the musical collaboration proceeded, with both
parties throwing ideas into the big cauldron they were whipping up. “Everybody
had songs left,” Acher writes, “or just loops or sounds, things
that were unfinished or didn’t fit anywhere else. We sent them to each
other and then we met in Munich for three weeks to finish everything. Some of
the songs already sounded quite finished then, but we also recorded lots of
additional instruments and voices. So in the end it’s a mixture of elements
from everywhere; even some things [neither] of the bands ever tried before.”
The result is something that sounds something like the Notwist, particularly
on standout tracks “Perfect Speed” and “Men of Station,”
and something like themselves and a lot like something actually worth paying
attention to. I’m sorry Luda and Jigga, but you don’t really have
to do anything different when you play with crappy rock bands, and you, crappy
rock bands, you just simplify your shtick down to a couple power chords and
you’re out. If that tactic is intended to create the biggest noise and
mess possible, then 13&God is more interested in the kind of Quaker craftsmanship
that uses neither nail nor glue, just perfect joints.
Thus, the Walker seems like an ideal place for them to be appearing with Brooklyn
dance-noise phenom Black Dice. They even have some stalking plans for the Twin
Cities (“In Minneapolis we hope to meet our friend Andrew Broder from
Fog (one of my favourite bands at the moment) and I hope to visit the record
shop Hymie’s,” writes Acher) and while more extended time in the
States and time spent with cats immersed in hip-hop culture might up their English
vocab a notch or two, I’m sincerely hoping it doesn’t change Acher’s
lyrical style too much. The hook from “Men of Station” goes “We
are men of station/ we are troubled men just the same/ but we’re not as
hell as you.” I ask Acher what that’s supposed to mean, and his
casually democratic reply speaks volumes about the kind of open-mindedness you
need to embark on the kind of musical partnership that the Notwist and themselves
have begun with 13&God: “Oh, I think you can think of something, and
that’s the right meaning then.” ||
13&God play at the Walker Art Center on Sat., Sept. 24 with Black Dice
and Blood on the Wall. 8 p.m. All Ages. $15/$12 for members. 1750 Hennepin Ave.,
Mpls. 612-375-7600.
For more information on 13&God, check out their label’s
site at AntiCon.com.
Head
on over to our mp3 page to download hundreds of tunes, including 13&God’s
song “Men of Station.”
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