“Men of Station”
from the album 13 & God
2005
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The term “experimental pop” seems like it should be reserved for the same universe “jumbo shrimp,” “Microsoft Works” and “compassionate conservative” reside. The immediately accessible melodies and hooks required for a successful pop record are certainly at odds with the primary focus of an experiment: time-tested versus never-been-done. The members of 13 & God wear both labels on their sleeves, but — as their eponymous debut proves — the desire to push things forward and still create beautiful and accessible work is not insatiable.
A self-proclaimed “super group,” 13 & God is composed of the San Francisco-based hip-hop group Themselves, which includes Adam “Doseone” Drucker, Jeffrey “Jel” Logan and Dax Pierson, and the inevitably German glitch-pop pioneers The Notwist, made up of Markus and Micha Acher and Martin Gretschmann. The combination is everything you could hope for: dark, down-tempo hip-hop floating through fuzzy pop clouds that drift in and out of the album. As far as abrasiveness goes, you wouldn’t expect a Faust vs. Dalek level of intensity from these two, and you would be right. But the album’s beauty is astonishing. Using a basic formula — broken a couple times — of one Doseone (the rapper) song for every Markus Acher (the singer) song, the album is nevertheless enormously cohesive. Acher appears at just the right time, and Doseone’s nasally clip (I’m always surprised I don’t find him annoying) fits right in with the music.
Despite this natural beauty, there is still a sense that they are willing to explore the outer limits of the musical template. The music is strange but immediately appealing, and the effortless tone of the vocals conveys a dark, contemplative moment. On “Soft Atlas,” the B-side of their pre-release single, the simple and gorgeous “Men of Station,“ Doseone contemplates space and the universe: “Without a universal law there is no gravity/ Without gravity there is no atmosphere/ Without an atmosphere there’s no chance of life/ With no chance of life I don’t exist.” His voice is repeated in rounds until all you really hear are those last three words. The track, like so many on this nearly perfect record, becomes almost trance-inducing.
Often it becomes clear that the experimental musician’s and the pop musician’s purpose is one and the same: create a piece of work that moves someone — physically or emotionally — and gives them something they couldn’t have before. Whether the musician is using basic concepts like melodies and beats or something more complex like odd time-signatures or strange production techniques, if the final product convinces someone to think or dance or do anything other than turn off the stereo (though that sometimes works, too), the goal has been met. The members of 13 & God have created a genuinely rewarding record that is better than the sum of its parts.