That Subliminal Kid

DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid (AKA Paul Miller), is like the John Cage of hip hop, but that doesn't even begin to cover it. He takes his moniker from a William Burroughs novel. He's collaborated with everyone from Kool Keith to Slayer, has edited a book about sound art, and is an experimental sound professor in Switzerland. You can hear his new remix of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech on his website.

Recently, Sub Rosa, the Belgian music label that specializes in archiving avant guarde spoken word stuff, gave Spooky access to their catalog to make mix tapes. Sound Unbound came out in May, and I've been working it into the Beat Authority mix pretty heavy ever since. A lot of listeners commented when I played the spoken word bit about "paperwork".

Listening to Spooky blend and weave the most prescient and visionary voices of the 20th century is spell-binding. The individual tracks are short, so just when Spooky goes all experimental on you and my attention starts to drift, here comes another voice speaking to me through the beats and fabric of sound: Allen Ginsburg or James Joyce or Marcel Duchamp or Iggy Pop or Gertrude Stein.

Sound Unbound is a total treat to listen to. It's like 20th century genius whispering to you through the musical vocabulary of the 21st century. And you realize DJ Spooky is the new generation. I've never caught him live, but, boy you want to when you see stuff like this...