The Witzard

"After being out of print for almost two decades, I am finally re-issuing my debut album, Bottle of Humans on double-vinyl. In 1998, I moved to California to start a record label with my friends and dedicate my life to music. I was a stranger in a strange land. I didn’t understand it then, but this was a magical period of human and musical history... it was the early era of The Internet and digital recording. Record stores were still a thing. We sat in rooms and made music together. We recorded onto tape. We wrote rhymes on paper. We broke all the rules. These were the early days of what some might later call "Art Rap," "Alternative Hip-Hop," or "Experimental Hip-Hop." Bottle of Humans was my first solo contribution to it. This album wasn’t meant to be an "album" at all; it was an evolving collection of songs I burned onto a CD-R that I strangely titled "Bottle of Humans." I would burn CD-R's at my corporate job, when my bo...

Vestige by Walter Gross " Walter Gross is truly a one of a kind artist, iconoclast and a master of many mediums. He is mainly known for his experimental audio soundscapes, which inhabit a space between Dustbowl Folk re-appropriations, walls of noise, sludgy Trap , Rap, and Prog-Rock . It's easy to throw a bunch of catchphrases together and make a bio seem compelling, but Walter truly walks these lines with grace and originality. Beyond being a music-maker, he is a film director and visual artist. His videos are obsessive collages and unlike so many who utilizes "found art," he brings these pieces to life and creates stunning and unique pieces with them," Black Box Tapes label head and Socially Conscious rapper-producer Tim "sole" Holland wrote within a recent BIO on Walter Gross' Bandcamp . Gross is a Baltimore transplant now living in Berlin , who has been making his own unique slightly Hip-Hop -leaning music and frantic video collages si...

Denver-bred genre-defying Echo Beds are the inagural signees to politically-charged emcee and former Anticon founder Tim "sole" Holland's latest label venture, Black Box Tapes. I would likely describe Echo Beds' rather long-winded "overdriventapehissnoisewalllandscapemetaldrumpummelpain- facevolumetherapy" sound of something strangely evocative of what an imagined missing link between late 80's-1990's Industrial Rock forefathers Nine Inch Nails and their critically-acclaimed modern day counterparts, Noise/Aggro-Rap group Death Grips; an obtuse indefinable sound, better yet, self-described by vocalist/bass player Keith Curts and beat-maker Tom Nelson as "a caterwaul of contact-mic'd oil drums, broken cymbals, battered basses, unrecognizable tape loops, and dilapidated voices with the expressed intention of volume as therapy and put it through the grinder of self-practiced D.I.Y. ethos;" with all that said, I'm proud to finally be a...

NEW ICONS OF A VILE FAITH by Echo Beds Denver -bred genre-defying Echo Beds are the latest signees to politically-charged emcee and former Anticon founder Tim "sole" Holland 's latest label venture, Black Box Tapes . I would likely describe Echo Beds' rather long-winded "overdriventapehissnoisewall- landscapemetaldrumpummelpainfacevolumetherapy" sound of something strangely evocative of what an imagined missing link between late 80's-1990's Industrial Rock forefathers Nine Inch Nails and their critically-acclaimed modern day counterparts, Noise/Aggro-Rap group Death Grips ; an obtuse indefinable sound, better yet, self-described by vocalist/bass player Keith Curts and beat-maker Tom Nelson as "a caterwaul of contact-mic'd oil drums, broken cymbals, battered basses, unrecognizable tape loops, and dilapidated voices with the expressed intention of volume as therapy and put it through the grinder of self-practiced D.I.Y. ethos." ...

"Just dropped the first video from #DEATHDRIVE, "Old Gods Ain't Dead," read a brief less than 140 character @mcsole Tweet; "Old Gods Ain't Dead," which was produced by DJ Pain 1 , premiered over at French online music magazine New Noise's site early Tuesday morning. I first made contact with Tim Holland aka Sole around 2010-11 during the crowd-sourced album roll-out campaign for his stellar politically-charged "rap as journalism" freestyle series, Nuclear Winter, Vol. 2 (Death Panel) . Soon thereafter, he released an album and companion EP with The Skyrider Band , two full-length solo albums across 2012-13, an instrumental Hip-Hop project, and a couple odds-and-ends compilations. " DEATHDRIVE combines modern Pop/Rap aesthetics with the political edge reminiscent of Hip-Hop classics such as Fear of a Black Planet . Sole & DJ Pain 1 utilize the Golden Era Hip-Hop approach of a rapper and DJ without employing gimmicks...

"A Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing (AROEE) is the culmination and logical progression of all the various aesthetics and approaches I have cultivated over the years. This album is at times sarcastic, belligerent, serious, poetic, and abstract. I rap about rappers, I rap about the empire, I rap about capitalism, labor, alienation and the environment. I offer critiques , I offer solutions. Sonically, this album bounces between classic Hip-Hop, Electronica & Experimental Dance, traditional song formats and tracks that barely resemble songs. When I think about the artists that inspire me, I look to Pete Seeger, Chuck D, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor ; Musicians who never let the immediate needs of the market dictate what they created..." "Like many that came before it, this album holds dear the Situationist notion that art is only doing its job when it's challenging the status quo. Unlike much music that has emerged under the banner of Occupy, t...

(1.) The album flows so smoothly and the beat selection is damn-near immaculate! How did you go about picking which tracks to include and sequence them? I tried to pick tracks that fit the theme of global revolution best, and went with those. I ended up cutting all the songs about more personal sh*t . I tried to sequence it more thematically as opposed to aesthetically. (2.) How exactly would you describe the overall sound (genre-wise) of A Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing? It's Rap music. I've been calling it "Critical Theory Rap." Some people have called the production "glassy," I don't know what that means. * THE WITZARD EDIT: "This album is the culmination of a lot of shit, I hope you enjoy it... It's funny, it's poppy, it's not poppy, it's belligerent, it's personal, it's militant, it's everywhere." (Kickstarter Update #18) (3.) I'm not the most political person whatsoever... But ho...

"I wasn't gonna send this to 2dopeboyz because the video is super low-budget and admittedly kinda shitty... Then I started seeing other "4th of July videos" coming out today, literally with motherfuckers draped in American Flags and I couldn't resist... I just started writing this shit last night... got kinda drunk and started editing a video together after... [Some] other "all style/no substance" rappers would lie and call it a "freestyle" ... This song was written and recorded in an hour in one take. It's an honor to have my videos posted here on 2dopeboyz and for those who take the time to listen, much respect. If you don't resonate with the message in the song, that's your right. It's also my right to say Capitalism is genocidal and it must be stopped. There is a class war going on, which side are you on?" - Tim Holland (sole) comment