Antimc - It's Free But it's not Cheap

If music journalists are frustrated musicians, then are hip-hop heads frustrated rockers? Wishing they were slaying Download with Iron Maiden instead of a studio surrounded by buttons and dials? Maybe not, but Antimc's potent brew of synthesised punk, frenetic trip-hop and wacked-out fuzzy post-rock beats definitely lends itself to the spandex'd legs-on-monitors pose. Veteran collaborator of underground hip-hop legends Shape Shifters and Project Blowed, Antimc jumps from genre to genre here, from street corner preaching boom-bap to dreamy summer field folk, always maximising his guests, including Busdriver and Andrew Broder of Fog. But this eclecticism flows naturally, and never feels scatterbrained or ADD-fuelled. It's been nice to see cross-pollination between the US and the UK for this nu-underground hip-hop scene or whatever you want to call it, so it's especially nice to see this released on local label Knife Fighting Monkeys, home of Penpushers. [Ali Maloney]