Now on Tape: Helado Negro and Land of a Thousand Rappers
November 26th, 2013 , by John Beeler
Island Universe Story One and Two from Helado Negro, and the entire five-album epic from Land of a Thousand Rappers, are now available on quality, made-in-the-USA cassette tape.
Island Universe Story One comes in emerald green with gold emboss, while Two is a deep purple (also with gold emboss). You can buy
The five tapes from Land of a Thousand Rappers comes in a handmade, balsa wood storage box with laser-etched logo on front. The boxset, for $49, includes the book based on the Land of a Thousand Rappers universe, Zero Seed.
All our cassettes include emailed digital download, and a download card for your convenience. You can purchase the cassettes here, or by clicking below.
Land Of A Thousand Rappers To Arrive in September
August 5th, 2013 , by John Beeler
If humankind, at some point in the distant future, were to invent a time machine, wouldn’t we have heard about it by now? Unless, of course, the evidence were right in front of us, and we just didn’t see it. What if, for instance, there’s an entire genre of music, completely saturating popular culture, in which fragments of the past were constantly being served up in juxtaposition with the aesthetics of musical futurism, zipping backwards and forwards in time through the technologies of rhyme and rhythm? What if hip-hop is a form of time travel, and nobody ever noticed?
Well, someone finally did notice, and compiled a five-volume dossier of proof. Michael Kaufmann, Wayne Feldman, Ero Gray and their team of musical mad scientists are now accepting preorders for Land of a Thousand Rappers, a massive new concept album that excavates the secret surrealist sci-fi collage project that hip-hop has always been, explodes it, and devours it again.
A narrative in verse, replete with sword-wielding heroes, ancient battles, mythic archetypes and emblems, and a huge cast of characters, Land of a Thousand Rappers is literally epic and baffingly complex. Future Rapper, our tentacled Aztec hero, struggles to save the space-time continuum from the sinister forces of art dealer/warlord Warhol Buck$, in a rap odyssey held together by the sort of the sprawling, all-encompassing logic usually symptomatic of either genius or madness.
Seven (7) years in the making, Land of a Thousand Rappers will finally become available for purchase in an edition of 49 (7 x 7) for $49 (7 x 7) and comes in the form of a 140-page (7 x 20) novella illustrated by Jonathan Dueck, plus five (7 – 2) cassette tapes and a download code, in order to ensure compatibility with playback devices from both past and future.
Listen to a sample below, or by clicking here. Read more info about the set here.
WE ARE CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED TO ANNOUNCE WARHOL BUCK$
July 30th, 2008 , by John Beeler
Asthmatic Kitty unenthusiastically announces the release of the Land of A Thousand Rappers Vol 2 (view the album’s page here), via the Warhol Buck$ copyrighted, "Pay What Warhol Buck$ Determines Is a Highly Profitable Pricemodel," aka "Pay the Buck$ His Due," aka "Pay What He Wants."
Honestly, we don’t have much of a choice, and while we support the LOTR as a project-at-large, Volume 2 brings us a full album’s worth of misogynistic, unethical, and opportunistic green-economy business models.
It all spews from the foul-mouth of Warhol Buck$ and his company of white collar CEOs (Whiney Snivels (the artificial intelligent virtual reality out-of-work corporate logo yes-man), Zero Kelvin, The Life Coach (pyramid vitamin motivational speaker to the stars), and The Wizard (alchemist of doom). Drugs, fancy cheeses, soccer moms; no hedonistic stone is unturned.
To make matters worse Warhol Buck$ has announced a revolutionary model for record sales. This model capitalizes on the unethical practice of profiling and determines a purchaser’s price based upon socio-economic, political and personality assessment. Those interested in purchasing the record will be asked to answer a web-based questionnaire that will then output the cost to buyer. In a conference call with investors, Warhol Buck$ commented, "I was intrigued by recent attempts in the Industry to provide the illusion of choice with regards to the cost of a record. I decided to improve that model by removing the illusion. And the choice."
Asthmatic Kitty would like to take this opportunity to preemptively and officially apologize to wind farm owners, recyclers, Radiohead, Girltalk, and Paul Westerberg.
FUTURE RAPPER IN SIGNAL TO NOISE, HOUSTON
October 18th, 2007 , by John Beeler
Recent events reveal a practical application of Future Rapper’s time donut. Observe:
PAST: We here at Asthmatic Kitty enjoy and respect the magazine Signal to Noise.
PAST: Signal to Noise features and reviews Future Rapper’s Land of a Thousand Rappers.
PRESENT: Signal to Noise is releasing their latest issue in online format, but only until Friday, October 19th. (Download part 1 here, and part 2 here.)
FUTURE: This Saturday, Future Rapper will be in Houston, appearing at the Unusual Animals Party.
FUTURE: Experimental music magazine Signal to Noise will sponsor the event.
"WATER DISPLACEMENT" Land of A Thousand Rappers – Vol 1: Fall of the Pillars (Download)
FUTURE PAST LEARNING TONIGHT
September 7th, 2007 , by John Beeler
A few weeks ago Future Rapper made an appearance at the Harrison Center for the Arts in Indianapolis. Apparently, the location has some kind of temporal resonance because he is arriving again this evening at the HCA’s opening for historic artist Kipp Normand’s Curious City. Future Rapper has dubbed his appearance "The Institute for Future Past Learning: A Center for Chronocartography and Design" and has recruited two noted scholars for the panel.
IUPUI physicist A.J. Rader, Ph.D., will present "An Introduction to Spacetime," and historian John Beeler will submit his "The Contemporal Historiography of Indianapolis Revisited: The City as Refuge" for consideration. Future Rapper will moderate.
Doors open at the Harrison Center in Indianapolis at 6pm, and lectures will begin at 6:45 and 8:00. Please be prompt, and turn off all cell phones as their carrier waves disrupt Future Rapper’s temporal continuum.
FUTURE RAPPER INTERVIEWED
August 8th, 2007 , by John Beeler
Nick Hennies of the Weird Weeds interviewed Future Rapper for the online music magazine, Foxy Digitalis. In the first part of four, Future Rapper finally opens up and asks, "What would you like to know about the future, and at what point? Pre-The Immortal Time Slip Incident and its creation of the Horizon Puddles, or near future, or somewhere in between?"
The two jump from a discussion of language to the Roman Empire to the Free Church of Quantum Potential. Read it all here.
FUTURE RAPPER ARRIVES; HERE, NOW
August 7th, 2007 , by John Beeler
Today, Future Rapper’s Land of a Thouand Rappers appears on the shelves of independent CD sellers across the United States 2007.
Paper Thin Walls gave one of the album’s twenty tracks a 1.0 out 10. INTake Weekly called it "a delightfully elaborate riddle that repeatedly invites discovery and interpretation." After hearing the album, XLR8R dubbed Future Rapper the "nerdiest rapper in the history of music." And on one particular file sharing website, a downloader wished he could rate the release zero stars out of five – and gave it a one instead. Needless to say, people are confused.
We think that’s a good thing. Listen to some MP3s from the album and order here to decide for yourself. If you need context, check out Future Rapper’s as equally uncategorized Top 8 list on Dusted Magazine here, or listen to Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond speak it straight here. See a performance by Future Rapper here, or an interview by Jessica Halverson of the Indianapolis Star and INtake Weekly here.
FUTURE RAPPER VISUAPPEARS
July 27th, 2007 , by John Beeler
The elusive Future Rapper, whose debut album releases next Tuesday, recently materialized in an abandoned building in Indianapolis. By an amazing coincidence, INtake Weekly‘s Jessica Halverson was there to capture the performance, and even elicited an interview from the time traveler.
Future Rapper will be appearing again next Friday night in Indianapolis at our next Unusual Animals party (details here).
Click here to read INtake’s writeup, here for the interview video, and here for the performance.
