Adam Drucker should change his hip-hop handle from Doseone to the Great Collaborator. Over the past five years, Doseone has been the sparkplug behind Deep Puddle Dynamics, cLOUDDEAD, Greenthink, and most notably, the no-Cal rapper duo Themselves. As part of Themselves, the incredibly prolific and chameleonic Drucker has a new collaborative effort under his belt: 13 & God.
13 & God matches Themselves’ low-key rap with the ambient electronix of the Munich-based indie-pop-electro outfit the Notwist. On paper, the combination looks odd at best, grating and disjointed at worst. But the two artists–who claim to have come up with the material for 13 & God’s self-titled debut on snowy Ontario backroads while stranded during a storm– have produced an album of soft, complex beauty that exceeds the sum of its disparate parts.
The sound produced by 13 & God is like a darker, more complicated Beta Band, with electronic flourishes and catchy hooks scattered here and there. The haunting “Men of Station” is full of depressive harmonies that make you want to crawl up into some post-apocalyptic hole and wait out the nuclear winter there. “Soft Atlas” is more influenced by Themselves, with Doseone’s nasal, almost Cypress Hill-esque voice droning about the earth cutting loose from its galactic mooring, but it retains the same murky undertones as the rest of the album.
13 & God is currently touring Europe to satisfy Notwist’s German fan base. Boy in Static is opening for the band on several dates. The self-titled full-length, as well as an EP, Men of Station, are both out on Anticon records.
