Dr. Octagon – Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation
Give Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation a little bit of time and it's quite often a worthy and vivid expansion of the Dr. Octagon mythos
'Octagon is back,' a herald declares on Octagon Octagon, 'people have gone octagon crazy.' That hype doesn’t feel misplaced. The last time Dan the Automator, Kool Keith and DJ Qbert released an album as Dr. Octagon was in 1996. That record, Dr. Octagonecologyst, colourfully rendered its fictional protagonist amongst a sound that blurred genre lines.
They’ve now returned more than two decades later with Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation, and in some ways it seems as if no time at all has passed. It’s a collection that feels like it could have been comprised of ideas made around the same time as Dr. Octagonecologyst, filled with lightning-fast hip-hop record scratching, blending grand beats and synths with a variety of genre-smashing elements. Then there’s Kool Keith reprising the role of time-travelling extra-terrestrial surgeon Dr. Octagon himself, as seedy as ever and delivering some deliciously lecherous rhymes (his play on “sutra” and “sutre” on Karma Sutra feels particularly satisfying).
While there’s a strange sense of timelessness surrounding Moosebumps though, it also takes some time to get into its stride. Its second half, which begins with the funk and soul cacophony of Bear Witness IV and includes the laid-back groove of Flying Waterbed (IG4), feels varied and vital, but also somewhat sluggish in the run-up. Give it a little bit of time though, and Moosebumps is often a worthy and vivid expansion of the Dr. Octagon mythos.
Listen to: Bear Witness IV