dälek, cleanteeth, Final Boss

Stepping out from behind the dark, ugly shadow of contemporary Hip Hop, Newark, NJ's Dälek are here to redefine pretenses of the genre now and forever with their challenging new full length on Ipecac Recordings.

Back in the day, Dälek and the Oktopus met at William Patterson University. The O, learning that Dälek made beats at his home studio offered to help him engineer his nascent tracks at his growing studio, Sweetwood Sound. Since a creative mind is a terrible thing to waste, Dälek later dropped out of Patterson, cashing in his college loan checks to pick up his first MPC 3000 -- turning what began as an experiment into one of the most inventive Hip Hop records the world will ever hear.

The duo's first album, 1998's Negro, Necro, Nekros (Gern Blandsten) caught the attention of critics around the world and established Dälek as risk takers, and flag bearers for a new generation of Hip Hop. The five track full length (clocking in at under 39 minutes) debuted the group's eclectic musical force. Blending elements of Faust's over the top noise, the Velvet Underground's grit, shoegazer rock density, innovative arrangements, prophetically insightful lyrics and hard hitting drums, all to come up with something truly rare in any musical genre: a sound that's hard, honest and unique. This record showcases a group as unconcerned with conforming to conventions as it is with breaking them.

By fall of '98, the young group made yet another uncommon move in the Hip Hop world by committing themselves to a ceaseless, DIY touring ethic which they maintain to this day. It was on the road at a college show that the group met Still. He impressed them by jumping up during their sound check and improvising a 15 minute set on the turntables. While Dälek and the Oktopus are consistently pushing the limits and expectations of the sampler as a musical instrument, Still spends most of his time recreating how audiences hear turntables. Alternately pulling out old school cuts or making the turntable sound like a guitar, a violin, or a wall of white noise, Still aims to be equal parts Grandmaster Flash, Jimi Hendrix, and Merzbow rolled up into one tight afro.

The group spent years since meeting Still on the road, captivating audiences across the board opening for such varied groups as De La Soul, EC8OR, Isis, Prince Paul, DJ Spooky, The Rye Coalition, Lovage, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Pharcyde, Techno Animal, Tomahawk, Funkstrong, and The Roots (to name a few). Not to mention their studio and on-stage collaborations with Avant-Garde Jazz artists like William Hooker and Ravish Momin, to electronic artists like Kid606, Velma, and the legendary Krautrock super-group Faust.

Biographies can't explain it all: this is a band you want to hear, and definitely want to see live, no matter who you are. The group's innovative show, which grabbed the attention of The New York Press, CMJ, NJ's Star Ledger, NME, Melody Maker, Wire Magazine, and more, usually includes a dense wall of sound, intense delivery, and at times, a blinding light show. Dead serious on stage, many a Dälek set has ended with monitors thrown, mic stands strewn, and a deafening feedback lingering in what was once the empty space between audience members.

Expect the band to tour extensively starting the early summer of 2002 in support of their new album "From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots," on Ipecac Recordings.


Cleanteeth was formed in early 2008 as an experimental noise project, and have since evolved into a crushing array of doom metal and electronic noise. Influenced by the likes of Karp, Butthole Surfers, Godflesh, My Bloody Valentine and armed with more full stacks than band members, the four-piece takes a wall of sound approach to creating its bastard blend of metal, noise, and rock.