The Week's Can't-Miss Performance

New York's Antipop Consortium travels a path deemed unconventional even by the anything-goes standards of indie hip hop. For instance, you could've caught the Queens-based group warming up for Radiohead in Europe this summer or sharing a Montreal stage in October with Oakland laptop spastic Kid606. Maybe Antipop's damn-the-demographic appeal has something to do with the fact that the act recently signed to the U.K.'s Warp Records, better known for the crunchy post-techno of Aphex Twin and Autechre than the blunted psychedelia of American underground rap. But then again, hip hop and electronica have always kept cordial relations: Most of the Warp lads claim to have been b-boys back in the day, and Antipop's analog groans suggest that it probably has some Stockhausen records squirreled away in the closet, right behind its track suits and Adidas shell-toes.

Anja Henriksen

Details

Thursday, Dec. 6, at 9:30 p.m.

DJ Rasta Q-Tip and BV Dub open

Tickets are $10

621-4455

Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St. (at Missouri), S.F.

Related Content

• Coachella 2012 Lineup: Radiohead, The Black Keys, Dr. Dre and Snoop, Pulp, The Weeknd, and More
  January 9, 2012
• Rich Beatles Fans Will Pay Buttloads of Cash For Questionable Memorabilia
  December 2, 2011
• Jigsaw Seen: Show Preview
  November 30, 2011
• Queer the Room
  February 1, 2012
• The Top 50 Songs To Get High To
  October 5, 2011

More About

• Anti-Pop Consortium
• Montreal
• James Brown
• Hip-Hop and Rap
• Electronic Music

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

On Antipop's debut, 2000's Tragic Epilogue (75 Ark), lyricists Priest, Beans, and M. Sayyid laid down twisted flows over autistic beatbox rhythms, soaking monotone vocals in echo for a kind of wee-hour surrealism. But on its new Warp mini-album, The Ends Against the Middle, the group disperses the murkiness. E. Blaize -- co-producer, engineer, and "fifth Beatle" -- cleans up Antipop's sound, emphasizing the queasy analog keys and whipcrack snares. Still, the music is unlike any hip hop you've heard, more Joy Division than James Brown, with wheezy organ lacing the sci-fi bleeps with an eerie humanism. Even Antipop's boasts feel off-kilter: Proclaiming the album is full of "nonstop hits like that bunny with the battery," these rappers are energized by a weird and nameless force.