While most rappers prize money, women, and some convoluted version of "street cred" above all, Anti-Pop Consortium's Beans, Sayyid, and Priest immerse themselves entirely in the joys of language,

Arrhythmia

While most rappers prize money, women, and some convoluted version of "street cred" above all, Anti-Pop Consortium's Beans, Sayyid, and Priest immerse themselves entirely in the joys of language, spitting staggeringly complex monologues in a riot of free-association poetry. "I'm now worthy of the grace / My face graces Jupiter's lakes," they stutter on the excellent "Bubblz" as dislocated bongo drums gasp and stammer around them. The production is out there: "Ping-Pong" loops the snap of a bouncing Ping-Pong ball, while the digital static of "Mega" segues an opera singer's heavenly scales into the trumpet of jungle beasts. Arrythmia is occasionally a difficult prospect--you may want to scream out for a simplistic Puffy brag or a funky Neptunes hook to take a breather from this never-ending torrent of ideas. Still, it's a mind-bending success that seeks nothing less than to deconstruct and rebuild the discipline of hip-hop from the ground up. --Louis Pattison

Arrhythmia