Perfect Sandwich Records’ Rollo Anderson found out that hip hop peaked before it had even begun with an odd act called Old Men of Moss Mountain.
So much is buried under Budapest’s castles and clubs that travellers are issued shovels by the Hungarian government on arrival. I didn’t dig up no bones though. I came home with a tape of the whackest hip hop on the planet, and yes, it was buried.
In a snowed out alley in Pest there was a bar where they’d glued the furniture to the ceiling. I met a guy there who was more beard than man and we started arguing about Public Enemy. This chief had it that no matter what sound came out of Flava Flav’s throat it was dope he reckoned; in his blood you see. No white guys could ever drop hop cos it weren’t in their blood; soulless you see.
I waxed lyrical about the Anticon chaps in middle America, about Sage and Eyedea, who on top of their technique are spitting shit about quantum leaps and intellect flips. He said “pah” and if I dug that junk I should hear a tape he had somewhere at home: recorded way back before Grand Master Flash and too ridiculous to ever have been released. Turned out it was too fucking amazing to ever have been released, the world hadn’t been ready I reckoned.
Under castles of vinyl in this codger’s pad was an old tape with the name of the group hand written on top and he wanted to show me that not only was all that white boy palava light years from real hip hop, but it had already been done decades ago, and had already failed. So he put it on and I ruined my pants.
Synths and live instruments from another planet, beats that Aesop Rock dreamt about and then were remixed by Boards of Canada and lyricism that made me realise Arthur C. Clarke must also have a copy.
He’d been given this five track by the boys calling themselves Old Men of Moss Mountain and never heard from them again, thought they’d moved to Australia or some such far flung backwater to climb trees or whatever.
He said he technically owned the rights to it and thought that was pretty fucking funny. I thought it funnier that he didn’t have any rent money so I bought those rights straight from his horsey mouth. Now they’re mine, and I’m releasing this shit through my label, Perfect Sandwich, cos it’s the dopest damn hip hop I’ve ever goddamn heard.
