Hypercondriacs
Hook, Line and SinkerQuickfire raps over funk beats on the debut release from this shipshape Brighton crew.
Brighton’s Hypercondriacs are little-known Britcore veteran Debut 75; fellow MCs Mr J and Rup; producer Double Czechin and DJ Iye 95 (didn’t Sheryl Crow once take him down to Pensacola
When you’re swaggering drunk and unrehearsed on stage, this style works wonders. Written down and recorded sober in a studio, it loses its improvised immediacy, and needs to find its edge elsewhere. So, on the first track, Debut uses the ‘hook’ of a fishing theme, a seafaring angle: ‘I’ll carve you into pieces of eight, use you for bait, your crew’s losing her mate’. This tack has a distinguished history. Justin Warfield’s classic Bug Powder Dust, composite of references to the beatnik era, is so impressive that its utter meaninglessness is a moot point. My Genre, from Probe Mantis of the Aspects, is a hilarious tribute to eighties films which puts Phi Life Cypher’s flick-referencing effort Moviedrome to shame. Hook, Line and Sinker isn’t even a first, anteceded by Parlour Talk’s naughty nautical rap-shanty Able Semen.
Debut plays on his theme with lines like ‘You’re the orca, I’m jaws’, and ‘I’m known to rock the boat overboard like Goldie Hawn’, leaving the impression that his naval knowledge was gleaned more from the TV than the tiller. His mutinous shipmates seem unwilling to stick to the topic, Mr J least of all. While no one would accuse these quick-tongued mcs of hesitation, they’re guilty of deviation and repetition here. Debut himself meanders into talk of packing methods and cremation, and in They Call Me, wastes a line he should have used here: ‘My foes get more stick than a crow’s nest’. The word ‘crews’, straddling the worlds of ship and hip hop, is well-used. Rup begins his verse with the irrelevant ‘I terrorise tracks like Ronnie Biggs’, and recovers by listing fish: ‘stop carping on’; ‘rip a guppy’s spine out with words that i write out’; ‘Rup’s on the reel like a marlin’.
When you’re swaggering drunk and unrehearsed on stage, this style works wonders. Written down and recorded sober in a studio, it loses its improvised immediacy, and needs to find its edge elsewhere. So, on the first track, Debut uses the ‘hook’ of a fishing theme, a seafaring angle: ‘I’ll carve you into pieces of eight, use you for bait, your crew’s losing her mate’. This tack has a distinguished history. Justin Warfield’s classic Bug Powder Dust, composite of references to the beatnik era, is so impressive that its utter meaninglessness is a moot point. My Genre, from Probe Mantis of the Aspects, is a hilarious tribute to eighties films which puts Phi Life Cypher’s flick-referencing effort Moviedrome to shame. Hook, Line and Sinker isn’t even a first, anteceded by Parlour Talk’s naughty nautical rap-shanty Able Semen.
Debut plays on his theme with lines like ‘You’re the orca, I’m jaws’, and ‘I’m known to rock the boat overboard like Goldie Hawn’, leaving the impression that his naval knowledge was gleaned more from the TV than the tiller. His mutinous shipmates seem unwilling to stick to the topic, Mr J least of all. While no one would accuse these quick-tongued mcs of hesitation, they’re guilty of deviation and repetition here. Debut himself meanders into talk of packing methods and cremation, and in They Call Me, wastes a line he should have used here: ‘My foes get more stick than a crow’s nest’. The word ‘crews’, straddling the worlds of ship and hip hop, is well-used. Rup begins his verse with the irrelevant ‘I terrorise tracks like Ronnie Biggs’, and recovers by listing fish: ‘stop carping on’; ‘rip a guppy’s spine out with words that i write out’; ‘Rup’s on the reel like a marlin’.
On bonus track They Call Me, where Debut is named by a Connels sample, ’75…’, he's least inventive. ‘I ain’t new to this’, he says, his ten-year immersion in rap perhaps responsible for such kneejerk clichés as ‘I’m uncouth and rather rude, half you crews’ll be leaving here scarred and bruised’. Back To Burn, though, contains some superb silly similes: ‘I fucking kick off like espadrilles’, the somewhat tasteless ‘You get me blood – like tampons’, and best of all, ‘You’ll be tripping over these bars like retards in gold mines’. This is certainly a promising debut for Debut 75 and pals, but as their name suggests, the Hypercondriacs are not quite as ill as they think they are – yet.
