Doom - "Gazillion Ear" (Thom Yorke Remix)
US-based hip-hop producer
Doom is a prolific and multifaceted man. Going under various other monikers (Viktor Vaughn, Zev Love X, King Geedorah, Metal Fingers, MF Doom and the Supervillain) and working on various collaborations (Madvillain and Danger Doom), he has been at the hip-hop game for some twenty years. But unlike most veterans in, say, rock, Doom has moved further and further into left-field as he ages. This year's
Born Like This LP has already been claimed as another odd, slanted and engrossing transmission from whichever planet this dude currently resides.
And along came Thom Yorke. He has taken "Gazillion Ear," one of the album's highlights, and let the colours run. Or, rather, bled the colours out of it. Doom's trademark fumbling flow remains fully in place, but Yorke has dropped the warm soul backing for a cloud of synths, rich in harmonics. It's a striking, if somewhat predictable, combination. The reduction of the soul drums to glitching beats loses some of the grit that complements Doom's reedy vocals. But, rather than merely distill, Yorke has also added - looming, dissonant vocal lines that give the track an apocalyptic air missing from the original. (Same old Yorke, summoning the apocalypse again!)
The track can be got as a bonus with the iTunes version of the
Born Like This record (which you can preview in full at Doom's
MySpace page).