ARTIST INFO

 

Dr. Octagon is perhaps the best known alias of Kool Keith, original member of the New York new school pioneers the Ultramagnetic MCs.

Kool Keith is best known as a somewhat controversial solo rapper, his signature “stream-of-consciousness” lyrical flow, and his ability to drop complex freestyle vocals with apparent ease, have earned him a perennial nod from the underground hip-hop community. Bizarre, disjointed, even delusional themes, concepts, and references tend to season the average Kool Keith album. Many of Kool Keith fans first discovered him on The Prodigy's 1997 album ‘The Fat of the Land’ where he supplied the lyrics on ‘Diesel Power’ and ‘Smack My Bitch Up’.

Keith has recorded under a bewildering range of different guises, from Black Elvis to Dr. Dooom, as The Masters Of Illusion & Diesel Truckers (with Kutmasta Kurt), and as one of the Analog Brothers (with Ice T).

It is without any doubt however that his most successful persona is Dr. Octagon. Teaming up with Dan "the Automator" Nakamura, ‘Octagonecologyst’ was released in 1996 in the UK by James Lavelle’s label Mo Wax. The album received critical acclaim, though mainly from atypical sources outside the mainstream hip-hop community. The critical success of the album helped to open the accessibility of the underground hip hop scene to an appreciative audience.

Now back in 2006 after a decade spent in the wilderness Dr. Octagon has resurfaced with a brand new album: ‘The Return Of Dr. Octagon’. Production trio One Watt Sun have picked up where Dan The Automator left off. They recorded 'The Return of Dr. Octagon' in an array of different places including a twelfth century turret in the old quarter of Prague, Byron Bay and Melbourne in Australia, as well as their current studio space in Berlin. One Watt Sun’s musical style is like a morphing twisted intelligent organism, an animal yet to be named and really suits Kool Keith’s crazy rhyming.

Outstanding tunes such as the lead single ‘Aliens’ as well as other soon to be classics ‘Ants’ and ‘Trees’ never sit still for a moment, changing pitch and instruments like an orchestral conductor with amnesia! It is within their production that One Watt Sun seem to really have the ability to bring out the edginess of Keith’s lyrics, and his unstable character, (he was a onetime patient of Bellevue psychiatric hospital) only adds to the magic of The Return of Dr Octagon,

Also making an appearance on the album, DJ Dexter (formerly of the Avalanches) steps in for the Egyptian scratch flavour of Ants and Princess Superstar who features on the song ''Eat It', a twisted tale of war that somehow manages to include sexual references, bizarre!

It may have been a decade since the last album, but Dr. Octagon is still kicking it, what are you waiting for, check it out!