Knife Knights, “Drag Race Legend” (Sub Pop)
The potent summit meeting between Shabazz Palaces’ Ishmael Butler and superproducer Erik Blood (both Stranger Geniuses), Knife Knights might be the strangest project that both musicians have participated in—which is saying a lot. Over the last decade, these audio wizards have manifested an alchemical rearranging of hip-hop’s DNA with Shabazz Palaces. With Knife Knights, they’ve branched out into neo-R&B, atmospheric funk, abstract electronica, and dream pop, using the studio as a machine to construct virtual aural infinities—bold tricks of the ear that also get you to nod your head.
Their 2018 debut for Sub Pop, 1 Time Mirage, is one of the strangest and most engrossing albums in that Seattle label’s 30-year history, and “Drag Race Legend” might be the LP’s weirdest cut. Featuring OCnotes on bass, guitar, and vocals, the track pits distant, distressed psych-rock guitar against bulbous bass pressure and snare hits trapped in molasses. Imagine hearing doomsday dubstep while tripping on DMT and you can get an idea of the radical disorientation going on here. Perhaps “Drag Race Legend” is what Miles Davis or Sun Ra would be creating now, had they lived this long—the afterbirth of the cool. (Watch the spectacular video—which is directed by Joshua M. Johnson—after the jump.)
Knife Knights perform tonight at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center as part of the Earshot Jazz Festival with Darius Jones and Stas THEE Boss.
