Rajbot

Rajbot’s music is a fusion of live instrumentation and samples with attention paid to the details and the use of plenty of change-ups. When he’s not turning out catchy, drum-heavy grooves like "Cordon Sanitiare” or "Words Work Best When They Don’t Mean Much,” he’s layering sounds into a cacophony of noise that is just barely more hip-hop than punk, and which take up much of the latter half of the album. The production throughout is interesting enough on its own, but unlike his previous album, the instrumental Boojwaterror, Raj puts words to the majority of the songs here. With a whiny, nasal voice and rapid flow, Raj drops his abstract poetics filled with two dollar words, word associations and b-boy-isms. Luckily the lyrics are included as a chap book, allowing for easier digestion, analysis and interpretation of each song. Modern Complaints is a creative basement production that is best heard with an interest in the peripheral sounds of hip-hop music and an open mind.