NPR

First Listen: Dr. Octagon, 'Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation'

The first Dr. Octagon project to reunite Kool Keith with Dan the Automator in 22 years picks up right where they left off, as weird and warped as ever.
Dr. Octagon's first album in 22 years, <em>Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation</em>, comes out Mar. 30 on Bulk Recordings.

When rapper Kool Keith and producer Dan the Automator recorded the original album in 1996, it felt like they invented a sub-genre of "weird rap." Keith already had a () large reputation as a wizard of non-sensical rhymes dating back to this days with New York's Ultramagnetic MCs. Dan was a well-respected, but low-profile, beatmaker in the Bay Area, whose debut 1989 single was a tongue-in-cheek, proto-horrorcore 12" entitled "." However eclectic on their own, both men were outliers in a hip-hop era that was still largely self-serious, eager to prove itself to mainstream detractors, whether via the cinematic street imagery of , and or the sonic sophistication of , and the 's .

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