New York’s Antipop Consortium have always left listeners scratching their heads, but those who showed up for their Friday-night show downstairs at the Middle East seemed especially confused, and with good reason. Opening for the edgy rap trio were the Holy Ghost, a sludgy rock band comprising former members of Skeleton Key. It may have been odd to see the Ghost romp through their emotive closer while a laptop, Moog, and MPC sat patiently directly behind them, but that didn’t come anywhere close to out-weirding APC’s brilliant, unpredictable set.
From the moment they took the stage, APC — comprising rappers M. Sayyid, Beans, and Priest — just looked a bit off. Rubbing his hands and cracking his knuckles intently, Priest was the first to arrive, hovering above a laptop and sequencer and banging out a bubbly din of shorting circuits and electro thuds. While Beans manned his prized Moog, the charismatic Sayyid did his best to provoke the crowd. With his gaunt frame, baggy jumpsuit, and alcoholic stutter, he seemed more like a hype man for DMX than a champion poet and member of one of rap’s most progressive cliques, but such is the beauty of APC. After cutting two albums of skewed narratives and left-field rhythms, this trio have earned a reputation as one of the most free-thinking crews around, but they’ve always maintained a loyal attachment to the simplest, catchiest draws of good rap music. The boom-bap and brags are there, only a little off-kilter and difficult, and translated through the occasional analog keyboard.
After starting the night with their usual impromptu space jam, the three launched into cuts from their new Arrhythmia. Highlights included "Ping Pong," "Dead in Motion" (with a scintillating opening from the bookish Beans), and a crashing remix of "Sllab" from their 2000 debut, Tragic Epilogue. Best of all, they functioned as well as a group as they do as individuals. Whether they were giving one another space to drop solo freestyles and kill key verses or noodling collectively with their respective instruments, this show was a satisfying hybrid of heady independent rap, Afronaut riffing, and the occasional bouncy swath of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall. And any rappers who can get their audience to chant an esoteric hook like "What is your malfunction?"are all right by me.
