Viper Creek Club give “Got Ya Numb” the electro once-over. VCC’s Mat Wisner matches frenetic synth with Wizdom and Grynch’s frenetic vocals, but the best part is the emo keyboard element that slides in and builds during the chorus. Hip-hop, meet club music.
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Tacoma emcee Rockwell Powers likes to switch up his collaborative partners on each of his projects. From the straight-forward confident boom-bap of the Kids in the Back LP (with producer Ill Pill), to live party-rocking instrumentation with funk band 10th and Commerce, to the electronic/hip-hop hybrid experimentation of the Pocket Full of Stones EP (with Viper Creek Club), Rockwell is establishing himself as an artist of many tastes.
For his latest project, the Kings & Comics EP, DJ Phinisey is assigned production duties. K&C is Rockwell’s most traditional hip-hop album since Kids, and yet another feather in the cap for the burgeoning 2-5-3 scene. Hit the album cover below for the FREE download link.
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Viper Creek Club take Mash Hall’s “Can You Stand the Reign” and submerge the original 90’s-loving nostalgia in an electronic wash of turbulent synth and voltaic thump. It’s equal parts unlikely and pleasing. Mat Wisner and company are crazy for this one.
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A lot of upstart rappers are still trying to find their voice (and opportunity to shine) in the over-glutted Pac Northwest scene. Puyallup emcee, Name the Uncanny already has one advantage over the others — a creative relationship with Mat Wisner’s well-respected electro-shop, Viper Creek Club. Check out Name’s six-track EP, Outrunning the Cold, available for free download. Click here or below.
Yet another remix of a Fresh Espresso track, this time courtesy of local electro wizards Viper Creek Club. “The Lazerbeams” gets VCC’s special distortion treatment. It’s beautifully, refreshingly, grimy. Something akin to rinsing your mouth out with minty thumbtacks — which might sound bad, but really, it’s not. Best FE remix I’ve heard so far, fam. Click here or below to download.
Photo jacked from VCC's Myspace page.
Earlier in the year, Rockwell Powers and producer Ill Pill dropped, Kids in The Back, an album that will probably end up being the best release out of Tacoma in 2009. It’s a surprisingly polished and confident piece of underground hip-hop that deserves more burn than it’s gotten.
Now, Rockwell has released another collaborative effort, the Pocket Full of Stones EP, produced by Mat Wisner of the Viper Creek Club collective. Pocket is an eclectic exploration of hip-hop’s recent trend toward electronic and dance music; an updated version of disco for the 21st century. P Smoov is doing it locally. Kanye is doing it nationally. Some of it hits, some of it misses. Count Pocket Full of Stones as one that hits the mark, most of the time.
It’s available for free download. Click the album cover below for the link.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 