Sneaking out under the cover of the kind of artwork better suited to chill out tedium, this is the really rather good debut album from sometime Aesop Rock, Cannibal Ox and Anti-Pop Consortium collaborator, Terrence Tessora. Although forged from the same murky leftfield hip-hop landscape as the Def Jux sound, 'x2' often tends toward the more forgiving textures of jazz than the industrial grind of El-P. There's even a potential hit here in the Wu-Tang-in-party-mode string samples of 'New New York'.
Since the album was originally slated for the title 'Off On Mondays' - a reference to Tessora's only day of the week off work when he put these tracks together - it's safe to assume that he's not sipping Cristal with Jay-Z and P Diddy just yet. The struggles of the New York hip-hop underground are most evident in the abstract grind of tracks like 'Trigga Da Whistla' and 'Change' as he spits nasal verbals with a ferocity worthy of Company Flow in their prime.
At it's best though; the heaviness of the production is tempered by neck-snappingly taught and funky beats. 'Late To Work' sees guest emcee LoDeck getting nasty on one of the finest productions of this or any other hip-hop album of recent months, with just drums and a de-tuned, nagging guitar line providing the soundtrack.
In the occasional hand-clapping and beat-boxing there's a hint of the old-school but Tessora's reference to first hearing 'Planet Rock' as if it were "some sort of space invasion" points better at his futurist impluse, not an urge to take it back to '86. 'x2' suffers from none of the gone-but-not-forgotten nostalgia of Jurassic 5 or People Under The Stairs but instead steers its sounds towards that initial buzz of invention.
That's not to say that anything here is as sonically uncompromising as 'Fantastic Damage' or as inventive as Timbaland. But the way in which the familiar tools of hip-hop are slightly repurposed make this album one of the most refreshing things to have emerged from a bedroom studio in a long time. So, another fine talent emerges from the New York underground and not a vintage leather jacket in sight.
