Doseone interview: “I may not be much else in this world but I guarantee you I am getting to rapper heaven.”

Published in The Believer, Oct. 2007.

Adam Drucker, better known by the alias Doseone, has said his initial attraction to rap was as much about the “persona/ego projection” as a love of words. Drucker cut his teeth on the rap-battle circuit, exchanging rhymes with Eminem and other MCs, until his friendships with like-minded musicians led to the creation of the Anticon collective/record label, which fuses hip-hop to indie rock, ambient music, poetry, and experimental noise.

Although Drucker has recorded several solo albums, his primary efforts have been collaborative. With the trio cLOUDDEAD, he worked with Yoni Wolf (Why?) and producer David Madson (Odd Nosdam) to create a pair of critically acclaimed albums that pasted non-sequitur raps onto sleepwalking funk beats and archaic keyboards. His most consistent collaboration has been with producer Jel (Jeffrey Logan) as Themselves. The duo has joined forces with German indie-rockers the Notwist as 13 & God and with other musicians in their current project, Subtle.

Read the complete article in The Believer.

Supergroup in Reverse: The Afterlife of cLOUDDEAD

Published in The Fanzine, Nov. 2007.

Every once in a great while when a band breaks up, it’s like a supergroup in reverse; each performer’s independent project is packed with an exactness of vision that seemed impossible in collaboration: as if Bob Dylan had always just been the guy who played rhythm guitar in the Traveling Willburys and then – Bam! – came out with Blonde on Blonde; a complete inversion of the rock archetype of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatle blandness.

Eccentric hip-hop trio, cLOUDDEAD, part of the Anticon collective, formed in Cincinnati in 1999 and relocated to Oakland together in 2001. Producer Odd Nosdam (David Madson) built murky soundscapes from archaic keyboards, flea market reel-to-reel tapes and a Roland SP-202 “Dr. Sample” while rappers Doseone (Adam Drucker) and Why? (Yoni Wolf) overlapped non-sequitur lyrics about paint-spattered eye-glasses, their neighborhoods and the universality of death. As self-described shut-ins who shared apartments in various permutations, on their albums they sound telepathically close: Why? and Doseone completing each others’ sentences while the production mirrors their hypnotic, sometimes morbid humor.

Read the complete article at The Fanzine.