Lost Reality
Dual Core

Chief Bromide Land
Chief Bromide

Confession time: I'm a scattershot hip-hop and rap fan, but love nearly anything decorated with indie pop. The artforms are often complex, agile and thoroughly telling -- each in their own specific ways. Because of my own life experiences, the former doesn't always connect for me, while the latter feels like real transformative work. Both, when done exquisitely well, transport me to another place in time and offer a window to another life, another experience. In short, what any well-approached music should do.

But one thing that often does is it for me -- and here's where my suburban childhood comes screaming through -- is cheeky, pop culture-inspired schtuff that recalls those halcyon days. Local act Dual Core delivers exactly that in their nerdcore/hip-hop. Lost Reality is their third slate of sharp-tongued goofball beats, rhymes and tech. With a healthy 15 tracks, Reality has scoressd a lot of publicity already -- including features in podcasts and shows like WIRED magazine's phenom Geek Dad podcasts. To wit, int eighty and c64 have added to the fun with some of the nerdcore genre's whoppers (Wheelie Cyberman of Optimus Rhyme, YTCracker and Beefy). Fun, upbeat songs with great hooks reside here; I'm thinking "Fantastic Four," "Judgment Day" and the title track (which features a very telling George W. Bush quote beforehand and some wicked Ill Poetic wordplay) are the tops.

Chief Bromide formed out of the break-up of the band Bella Sylva and features members of Kong Sauce and the once-mighty Humphry Clinker -- both of whom we've featured recently in CC Sounds. This group features three different singers, a copious amount of hi- and lo-tech instruments and acoutrements (Yamaha and Casio keyboards joining echophone, lap steel guitars, ebow and maracas). As a result, what you hear on the group's 11-cut debut Chief Bromide Land indeed falls somewhere between "hi-fi, lo-fi and no-fi." When Land clicks, it's really on (witness the surfy-styled "Shut Out" and New Wave-infused Brit invasion garage sounds of "This Crumbling Highway"). Frenetic, jangly and historically mashed-up, this one definitely bears repetition.

Check out int eighty of Dual Core when he performs a set this Saturday, April 18 at 9PM at Notacon 6 (the hip, sixth annual Cle-based computer hacker conference) which takes place at the Wyndham Cleveland at PlayhouseSquare, 1260 Euclid Ave. Learn more at http://www.Notacon.org and download Dual Core's tunes at http://www.DualCoreMusic.com.

Explore Chief Bromide's sound in a dual CD release party with 9-volt Haunted House this Saturday, April 18 at Now That's Class, 11213 Detroit Ave.. Call 221-8576 for info or visit http://www.MySpace.com/mmmword.

From Cool Cleveland Managing Editor Peter Chakerian peterATcoolcleveland.com
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