Thanks For Asking CD

MUSIC

RAP / HIP-HOP

Song Listing

Disc 1

Song Title

1. It's Apsci

2. Tirade Highway

3. Never Give Up

4. Bike Messenger Diaries

5. Runaway

6. Voice Print Identification

7. Anais & Godzilla

8. Stompin'

9. See That?

10. KL 6am

11. Cherubic

12. Rob the Bank

13. Robosex

14. Puttin' on the Fiz

15. Reception, The

16. Pep Rally

Album Notes and Credits

Notes & Personnel Info
	Apsci: Dana Diaz-Tutaan, Raphael LaMotta.
	Lately underground hip-hop has been all about variation: bringing hypothetically disparate, or at least dissimilar, artists together to create a new sound. The people at Quannum Records have been particularly successful at this amalgamation, much in part due to producer Chief Xcel, who works on most Quannum releases. But for Apsci's debut record, Thanks for Asking, Xcel held back and let producer/MC Ra Lamotta (former bassist/singer for the indie rock group Vitapup) do the work instead. What results is an interesting combination of thoughtful rhymes, near-operatic vocals, and dark electronica beats, plus those computer-trying-to-sound-human interludes that appear so often on hip-hop albums, giving instruction and introduction, and acting perhaps as the vocal manifestation of the Big Brother who is watching your every move. Not that Thanks for Asking is overtly politically -- or conspiracy theory -- oriented: that's too confining. While "See That," featuring Mr. Lif, does criticize modern American government/media/society, Ra's lyrics are sometimes so cryptic -- fed by internal rhyme rather than actual significance -- that it's hard to figure out exactly what he's saying at all (what exactly does "Info supremacist, the nympho's a chemist/The bimbos that blemish, rescind those replenished/I'm an active pursuant that's passively fluent, the axis congruent" mean, for example?) and what is understood falls into normal hip-hop categories: MC skills and sex, most of the tracks focusing on the former. What distinguishes Apsci from similar-sounding groups like Atmosphere or Non-Prophets are Ra's beats. They're dark and messily syncopated, but they're melodic and quick enough that they don't weigh the listener down, instead providing a kind of urban-landscape backdrop to the figures of Ra and classically trained vocalist Dana Diaz-Tutaan. Both Ra's and Diaz-Tutaan's lyrics are unique and sharply introspective, and her voice is great, switching from trip-hop to soul to opera cleanly and sounding good in each. Apsci is certainly confident of their sound, this mishmash of styles, and it hardly varies throughout the duration of the album. This provides a nice consistency, but it also gets a bit repetitive. Diaz-Tutaan often alludes to, even copies, the melodies she introduced in the opening tracks throughout the rest of the album, and the production doesn't ever shift much from where it started. This doesn't make the album boring or predictable; it sometimes just gets hard to distinguish one song from another. Apsci has found something that works, and execute it well, but it wouldn't hurt them to expand musically. Coming from such a varied background, it almost seems cheating not to. ~ Marisa Brown
Musical Guests
	Tunde
	Pigeon John
	Mr. Lif
	Vursatyl
	Martin Perna

Technical Info

	Release Date : 07/26/2005
	Original Release Date : 2005
	Catalog ID : QP 0702
	Label : Quannum Projects
	Number of Discs : 1
	Studio/Live : Studio
	Mono/Stereo : Stereo
	SPAR Code : n/a
	UPC : 00681940007023

Professional Reviews

CMJ (No. 922, p.3)
- "The enthusiasm of their bouncy, electro-squiggle beats are matched only by Dana (Diaz-Tutaan)
's soaring and bizarre voice, equally capable of crooning like Badu or Bjorking it up. (Ra)
LaMotta holds down most of the production duties as well as the rhymes, spinning skillful raps that ground this married couple's spacey sound nicely."

BloomReach Content

Thanks For Asking (2005)

Product Details:

Song Listing

Album Notes and Credits

Technical Info

Professional Reviews

Rakuten