PSY/OPSogist
The name, meaning, an expert at psychological operations--in all senses. Psy-ops is a Vietnam War term, freak the enemy out, ghost riding the Valkyries, Capt. Harry Potter and the orders of the Phoenix Program: terminate the Colonel. Exterminate all rational thought. Carried on after--blast rabbit screams at Waco, pump Slayer at Gitmo detainees. Also known as psywar. Lord Ha Ha. Inflatable tanks. Rename your cities, take your language, destroy your gods. Psyops are categorized white, black, grey. Like magic.
The musician, an instrumentalist. I think I first came across him on the short-lived I Hook A Beat Up site, where a song was posted and producers would compete to make the best track sampling it. PSY/OPSogist's were not the funkiest, but they were always the best, the strangest. Someone complained about his track once. He replied in the c-box, 'I make no-music.' I pulled The Cathode Ray Tube out the ether, an instrumentalist interpretation on Videodrome. The battle for the mind of North America had been won.
PSY/OPS did the beats for the unfortunately short-lived underunderground rap group Solaris Earth Pipeline, which you can't get anymore, it's too bad because they made two dope LPs. Now he makes some of the most deepcut, fracked and fried, sturm und fog instrumental LPs you ever heard. They cannot be defined or pinned down. You hear some rock in there. Some jazz. Some straight-up hip hop. Some surfer shit. Then some other shit. Then along comes another dripping purple thing. Then something else. Like a Dr. Seuss Bardo Thodol, And To Think That I Saw It On The Street Between Death And Rebirth.
That's why I put him on the year hip hop got weird, the Doom mix, the They Live mix, the 9/11 mix, the second be-bop mix, and made him the headline hostage of reality...shit, I probably forgot some. He's on mixes you ain't even heard yet, I got him on stash like a secret weapon, the UBIK mix, the time travel mix. He's out there. He's in there, and you don't even know it. Invading your brains.
What is instrumental music for? To zone out to? Loops for rappers to rappity rap over? What the fuck is 'intelligent dance music,' how do you dance intelligently, shuffle your feet while stroking your goatee? PSY/OPSogist's music induces a kind of trance state, there are layers beneath the layers like journeys to the far side of the sun. But not on some trippy weak sauce. No noodles. It is ill, evil, dark, booming and dooming. And then the drums, some of the hardest, on-point drums. I said this before: it's about the drums. Do they go boom bap? It's dope, it's hip hop.
About half the sounds are him playing the instruments, the rest sampling, you will never know what is where. He lives in Georgia I think? The state not the country? He has goats. It doesn't fucking matter. Let's not do the here-is-the-bio, here-are-the-influences (Premier, El-P, T. Rex, Thin Lizzy, OK dammit?). That counts for nothing. It is the sounds that matter. Or anti-matter.
One thing you won't hear on this mix--you gotta cop some originals--is his peerless use of vocal samples, crazy shit from movies, from lost radio, from late-night TV you're not sure you watched the next morning, maybe you dreamed that shit where the Air Force major said God is only in man, not robots? Descriptions don't do it justice. It has a uniqueness, a thing-in-itself like no other.
ZARDOZ
A John Boorman film. That makes no fucking sense on the first viewing, revealing its actually pretty great thematics of slaves, masters, freedom, death, passionate life, mortality later. But obscured by Sean Connery in red underpants, batshit dialogue, ridiculous hippie costumes, and lots of girls with bad headwraps and their titties out. A fuckload of drugs was consumed making that movie, and it shows. You could remake it with that dude from 300 all gritty and greywash, but it wouldn't be Zardoz. It's Ziggy Stardust and the Matrix from Shropshire. That shit is 1974 all over, druggy hangover, bitter aftertaste of broken '60s dreams. It is 2293. It could never be 2293. James Bond Exterminators hunting on orders from a giant flying stone head. A cult film for cult leaders. Descriptions don't do it justice. It has a uniqueness, a thing-in-itself like no other. And Charlotte Rampling got it going on though.
Zardoz vs. PSY/OPSogist vs. Elmattic. Zardopsyopsmattic, which by sheer coincidence is the name of the Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan, so we will call it...ZAR/DOZogist. Come to the second level with us.
K.O.S. intro / Chariots Of The Gods / The Sneak Attack / A Quick Reminder / Another Glass Of Whiskey / Cardinal [unreleased] / Who Would Watch / Life Grammar / Anti-Robot Freestyle #73 [unreleased instrumental] / SLY opps OH jist [unreleased] / Simplistic Summary / Dis Cosign [unreleased] / Wonderful Fall, Trying Accomplishment / That Will Work / One God / Little Pieces Of Paper / Capetown Villa / Mushroom Clouds Over Paradise / This One (Oblivion)
