Dalek: Hip-Hop from space?

BY JESSE CANNON

It's not everyday you hear a band that makes music unlike anything you've heard before. When I first heard Dalek it made me feel really good to know that someone was making truly challenging music. When I hear that there are innovative and different acts like Outkast and NERD in the hip-hop community, I fail to be impressed after hearing how much farther Dalek pushes things. Combining the intensity and size of Led Zeppelin (the group is also rivaling them in debaucherous tour stories at this point) with the soundfield of My Bloody Valentine, all in a hip-hop context. It's like the first time you hear a group like Can and you realize how unbelievably natural it is for a group to be so different from what's going on in popular culture at the time. The group's members, Dalek, Oktopus and Still, all create and produce music both for themselves and others. Dalek has worked with 2nd Gen, Funkstorung, Jett Brando, and the Lapse. Oktopus — a.k.a. Alop Momin — has recorded bands such as All Natural Lemon Lime Flavors, Chisel, Rye Coalition and Jets to Brazil. The group has just wrapped up the recording of their second full length, and recently released a 12" split on Matador with Techno Animal. This interview took place at Sweetwood Sound and was recorded on a Lawson L47MP into Sound Forge to get the true recording-nerd experience down.