Saturday, September 18, 2010

Old Men Of Moss Mountain


http://www.myspace.com/oldmenofmossmountain

Let's face it, by and large Aussie hip hop is pretty fucking shit. The so called leaders of the genre Hilltop Hoods and Bliss N Eso's music amounts to nothing much other than mediocrity, the music lacking any real sense of relevance, and it usually being rather fucking tasteless. The Herd and Urthboy go all political with the raps, but still who fucking cares, nothing their saying is exactly shocking, it's usually just a regurgitated Greens manifesto, rapped with little flair over a generic beat stolen from 90s US hip hop.

Looking at the fans of the genre, the sort of hoody sporting cretins you'd expect to see hanging out in shopping malls or watching rugby league over a schooner or carlton in some horribly refitted RSL, it's no wonder why the genre has become such a boring and stale form of expression, but then again look at Australia in general and you could say the music's lack of innovation, excitement or meaningful contributions to 21st Century society is really a reflection of it's context.

Of course there are exceptions to this rule, most notably in my mind bands like True Vibenation, or Diafrix who manage to at least do it with style, avoiding the sort of colonial clumsiness of most of their contemporaries. Also I have to say that listening to The Tongue's most recent album, Alternative Energy has given me a small feeling of hope that the genre might actually develop some taste (mind you even this album falls into the trap of cheesy choruses and poorly thought out lyricism), but still we don't seem to have any artists in this country really pushing the boundaries of what Australian hip hop could be. That is no one other than Old Men Of Moss Mountain.

In the same way that artists like PVT, Seekae, Ghoul and Danimals, have found ways to innovate within their genre, producing work of a truly international quality,doing so with an accomplished sense of professionalism and maturity lacking in many of the contemporaries, so too have Old Men Of Moss Mountain found a way of to offer something that is different compared to artists all over the world rather than just in our backyard.

They're by no means producing masterpieces, yet, but they are offering music that is original and interesting, and considering how hip hop seems to be growing stale the world over at the moment, with only a few handful of artists trying to make something new, I for one feel proud that Australia has finally cast it's hat into the ring of forward thinking rap.

http://www.myspace.com/oldmenofmossmountain

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