Written by Vincent Howard
Doom
Gazzillion Ear [EP]
(Lex Records, 2009)
MF Doom, the MC and producer known by a Rolodex of aliases, rolled out yet another pseudonym last year with his latest LP, Born Like This. This one, however, wasn't very hard to track: He dropped the MF and kept the Doom. Born Like This came at the tail-end of a four year silence that left most fans vexed, not least because Doom had averaged an album a year—ranging in status from good to classic—during the first half of the decade. While Born didn't deliver the litany of inspired moments found on Madvillainy, it fed hungry heads with all the fixings that made previous Doom releases so delicious: weird sci-fi film snippets, comic book antihero intros, samples from sleazy R & B tracks, turnouts from top-notch guest MCs, and the main course of Doom's scrumptious rhymes. Now, in the wake of Born, comes an EP titled after one of that album's best cuts, "Gazzillion Ear." Along with the original version, Gazzillion Ear features remixes by Thom Yorke and Jneiro Jarel (with help from David Sitek), and a short bonus beat called “The Green Whore Net."
Yorke's remix is a bleak landscape of ominous synths and organs. His solemn humming follows Doom's raps like a moody phantom. And if the sense of paranoia weren't already heavy enough, Doom's vocals are sped to a frantic, monotone flurry that races against driving drum swishes like a fallout victim searching for shelter. Doom's no stranger to horror (he took one of his monikers from a three-headed dragon that stalks Godzilla). However, his raps are always flavored with a jocular sense of self-mockery. When he throws campy horror film fragments into his tracks and makes lyrical references to Monster Zero, the proceedings seem darkly comical. But here, Doom feels fenced in by Yorke's claustrophobic austerity, left with little room to stretch out and warm up his funny bone. He can spit couplets about “JJ in a gold cape” and “Jake the Snake on mescaline” for days, but Yorke mutes the humor.
The tracks by Jneiro Jarel (who becomes Dr. Who Dat? for the album's second cut) afford Doom a bit more breathing space. The Who Dat? remix features steady bass thumps and a sprawling mix of glowing sounds that crack and slide like ice crags beneath Doom's glacier-melting flow. This fractured, ambient atmosphere would be right at home on a Tim Hecker record, and it gives the image of Doom swaying on the surface of a frozen planet, mic in hand. Jarel's second track finds Doom rapping at mid-speed inside a more temperate climate. Light strings tickle and pluck over upbeat percussion, and intermittent horns punctuate the rhymes. This sunny afrobeat vibe doesn't pit Doom's vocals against the interesting sonic tensions of the previous track, but it allows The Villain a warmer spot on which to shine his mic skills.
None of these remixes can touch the brilliant J Dilla original. Nevertheless, they offer another look at one of Doom's finest moments in recent memory. Over against the MCs crowned by last December's “best of the decade” album lists stands Doom, an oddball lyricist whose poetic gift Jay-Z and Kanye West have no categories for. Sure, West had his minor soul revival and Jay-Z his bragging rights to Biggie's title, but come on kids, “D's stats are staggering/ had his Ph.D. in indiscreet street hagglin.”
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