Shadow Huntaz

Since stumbling onto Shadow Huntaz due to my love of Funckarma production work, my love for them has done nothing but grow.

Anyone familiar with the skittering beat patterns, thick melodies and soundscapes made by the Funkens will not be disappointed, but it's the lyrics and vocal effects that really set this apart from any other hip hop or IDM (god I hate that term).
Some lyrics on certain tracks will seem to devolve into bits in your ears before reassembling into comprehensible syntax sometimes repeating, rearranging or preempting the previous/preceding verse.

The lyrical content itself is very diverse between all albums and singles. A lot of it is "futuristic" talking about megabytes and gigabytes, synaptic pathways etc. Others are more SciFi and others still are very dark talking of splitting skin with rusty scalpels and more. Some of it is just plain fun. But I wouldn't call it "Gangster" or even "Hardcore" Hip-Hop. This isn't Ice Cube.

Even at it's darkest tho there's still some tongue in check provided by some lyrical sound effects such as bullet "pew pew" sounds or one of the guys making a "blarr" spew sound after a particularly vicious joint.

Each of the artists vocal talents is very well suited to this style. My girlfriend commented one of the guys sounds like Xibit, but I'm not familiar enough with any of his work to make fair comment, but there is certainly that huskiness present. It's also amazing how much accent and as a result accentuation has on all of the vocal work.

In a nut shell if you're a fan of hip-hop, a fan of abstract beat patterns, or a fan of dark yet highly interesting and evolving sounds, you owe it to yourself to pick up some of this excellent material.

A few years ago I would of said that this is about as underground as music can get, but I bought the entire catalogue on itunes for when I'm away from my turntables for a fraction of what my wax cost me.

I'd still rather the vinyl any day of the week!

I was very excited when I first heard the idea of SKAM signing a Hip-Hop group to the label. To tell the truth I wasn’t sure what to expect, with a label of SKAM’s reputation, would hip-hop really work? There hasn’t been much hip-hop from the UK (this can probably be argued) that was very fresh sounding. There was Beans on Warp, but the guys from Shadow Huntaz are not following suit. This music of course isn’t something you’d hear on your local radio station here in the states. The MC’s remind me a little of Cannibal Ox’s Vast Air and Vordul, and the production doesn’t sound much like EL-P’s but the premise is the same, to incorporate a strange beat with some decent lyrics to make an all around good song. Can’t wait to hear the instrumentals for their first album “Corrupt Data”, some killer beats for sure.