Crunk 23

Technoshamanism is the fourth album pairing Noah 23 with Legendary Entertainment. While the first three were collections of Noah 23 odds and ends capitalising on the critical appeal of Noah’s fantastic sophomore album Quicksand, this new one is a unified album held together as the rapper’s first real collaboration with the label. Legendary head and in-house producer Crunk Chris provides the dark-future soundtrack with his illbient "Canadian Crunk,” a dark, industrial mix of minimal jungle and syrupy slow hip-hop. Noah is more impressive rapping fast so this collaboration works best when he’s going off over the former or double-timing it on the latter. Still, it’s a superb team-up as Chris’s Blade Runner-meets-Wildstyle production adds a dark, sickly atmosphere to Noah’s word-associated scraps of surreal sci-fi, new age prophecy and b-boy boasts referencing everything from London rapper Governor Bolts, "bourgeois cyborgs” and "technoshamanism” to psychic Edgar Cayce. Guest appearances from Livestock and Lord Kufu are unnecessary and the mind tends to wander during slower moments, such as the too-long outro "The Thirteenth Moonth.” While not quite recreating the glory of Quicksand, Crunk 23 turn out a pretty good evil clone with Technoshamanism — hopefully the first in an evolving series of experimental collaborations between Noah and Chris.