The heir apparent to eccentric production wizard
Prince Paul,
Dan the Automator's left-field conceptual brilliance rapidly made him a hero to underground hip-hop fans. For the
Deltron 3030 project, he teamed up with likeminded MC
Del tha Funkee Homosapien and turntablist
Kid Koala, both cult favorites with a similarly goofy sense of humor.
Deltron 3030's self-titled debut is exactly what you might expect from such a teaming: a wildly imaginative, unabashedly geeky concept album about interplanetary rap warriors battling to restore humanity's hip-hop supremacy in a corporate-dominated dystopia (or something like that). It's difficult to follow the concept all the way through, but it hardly matters, because
Deltron 3030 is some of the best work both
Del and
Dan have ever done. In fact, it's
the Automator's most fully realized production effort to date, filled with sumptuous, densely layered soundscapes that draw on his classical background and, appropriately, often resemble a film score. For his part,
Del's performance here revitalized his reputation, thanks to some of his best, most focused work in years. Long known for his abstract, dictionary-busting lyrics,
Del proves he can even rhyme in sci-fi technospeak, and the overarching theme keeps his more indulgent impulses in check. Plus, there's actually some relevant commentary to be unearthed from all the oddball conceptual trappings; in fact,
Deltron 3030 is probably the closest hip-hop will ever come to an equivalent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. The album boasts cameos by
Damon Albarn (on the proto-
Gorillaz "Time Keeps on Slipping"),
Prince Paul,
MC Paul Barman, and
Sean Lennon, among others, but the stellar turns by its two main creators are the focus. It's not only one of the best albums in either of their catalogs, but one of the best to come out of the new underground, period. ~ Steve Huey