Have you ever wanted to time travel? Do you love relevant, conscious, thinking-man’s hip-hop? If you answered “YES!” to both of those questions, Beat Rabbi and Deepspace5 have concocted the perfect cure for your ailments in the form of their late-2007 Illect Recordings release cleverly entitled Deepspace5oul.

Made up of 22 tracks, about 10 of which are interludes (some are short songs, some are instrumental) – the record is jam-packed with more Deepspace5 than you can handle. Recorded during the summer of 2003 prior to their sophomore release Unique, Just Like Everyone Else, Deepspace5oul is a blast from the past equivalent to the manic time-travel episodes of Bill Watterson’s classic serialized comic strip Calvin & Hobbes. The album gives us an unique presentation of the DS5 crew since it is the only release to feature singular production. Where all other DS5 releases have featured production from DJ Dust and Manwell, as well as rappers Fred Bruno, Playdough, and others (highlighting the multi-disciplinary talent of the crew), Beat Rabbi handles all of the beats on this project with only supplementary scratching and the like from others.

Thus, Deepspace5oul is an interesting side-release of the crew that highlights the excellent sounds coming out of Rabbi’s lab as well as sharing some circa-2004 raps from the crew. This is a remarkable listening experience for any fan of the group; the lyrics are excellent as always, and you can really hear by contrast just how much some of the guys’ vocals have improved since then. It’s a study in improvement and change, in that sense.

Musically, Rabbi sends up some of his best work ever on Deepspace5oul, sampling and fusing extensively from sounds such as soul, jazz, funk, and breaks – harking back to that classic (and rightly so) 1990′s rap sound. Sonically, the album traverses a wide landscape of areas – from full horn sections tickling your subconscious (“Deepspace 5oul”) to brilliant vocal tracks forming the backbone of a beat (“Beautiful”) to amazing bassline-driven rhythms (“On A Side Note”), Deepspace5oul is an exercise in production excellence. It’s plain that much time and thought and perfectionism was focused on this project, and the results are quite frankly thrilling.

Lyrically, the DS5 crew brings it as tight as they always have. Hearing new-to-us verses from almost 5 years ago is a very interesting experience, as it not only highlights the great strides of improvement made since (which has already been mentioned), but also just how amazing DS5 was even prior to that forward progress. Most notable is when the difference isn’t really even in the realm of “improvement” but of just plain difference – see The Listener’s verses, which definitely sound much more akin to his more traditional Whispermoon and The Night We Called It A Day style than to his present manifestation as heard and enjoyed on Ozark Empire or Return to Struggleville. Overall, between the shiny verses and the smart choruses, there’s food-for-thought and phonetic wonder here for weeks of repeated listens.

With the recent release of Bake Sale (an EP by DS5 standards at 10 tracks) and Greatest Beats & Unreleased (a b-sides and beat record), both in 2008, as well as 2009′s soon-coming and much-anticipated third album The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be, it’s becoming clearer than ever that Deepspace5 is one of rap’s undisputed supernovas of talent and an incredible machine that churns out hip-hop happiness in a way few other crews could ever hope to come near.

Deepspace5oul is a blast from the past that seems carefully designed from the top down to remind us that Deepspace5 pumps out quality, mind-and-heart-blowing hip-hop not only in the present and future, but the past as well. If you love rap and time-travel, you owe it to yourself to pick this puppy up and let it explore your soul with sound.

5 Souls out of 5.

Standout Tracks: Deepspace 5oul, Beautiful, On A Side Note, Double Dog Dare You, Downtown Connects, Say Yeah.

Jerry Bolton – for The Phantom Tollbooth.
January 10, 2009

I was thinking this morning that there’s a short-list of musical artists that I love and/or respect so greatly that I must own whatever they release as soon as they release it. Case in point, this morning Dust of Mars ILL announced via their mailing list that he (and Beat Rabbi) had just done an 18-track double-disc remix of Mars ILL’s 2003 EP “Blue Collar Sessions” entitled “Black Listed Sessions”. I ordered it immediately. You see, Dust is in the habit of remixing his own work, and the results have been consistently amazing – sometimes the remixes are even better than the originals. No small feat, when you consider Mars ILL is behind such underground classics as “Raw Material”, “Backbreakanomics” and “Pro Pain”.

Anyways, I thought about it a bit, and here’s my short-list of “musical artists/groups so awesome I buy whatever they release as soon as they release it”:
x. Mars ILL
x. Project 86
x. mewithoutYou
x. Thrice
x. Deepspace5
x. Underoath
x. Sintax the Terrific
x. DJ Dust
x. As Cities Burn

Pictured is Durn. Weilding “Jin’Rokh, The Great Apocalypse”. Now at rest.

3 / 4

One to go.

Commentary: It feels so good to be done. Third year was difficult – not necessarily in terms of the content studied. Difficult in every way but scholastically, and so academics were thus rendered difficult as well. I feel like I’ve been stretched every way possible, and yet I know this is just the tiny, visible peak of a monstrous iceberg.

This year is significant for many reasons, but few of them relate to school. This year marked the beginning of my first real relationship in ~4 years. Real, in this case, meaning “she is actually, in fact, interested and reciprocal; capable of making her mind up and being clear about it”. I apologize if the previous sentence comes off as bitter, as I’m not much bitter anymore, just glad to not be tired in the same way I was when that sort of thing bothered me (ie. right before meeting Steph). To add encouragement to healing, I found myself engaged shortly thereafter to someone I oft refer to as “Miss MyUniverse”, among many other things. I freely admit my human propensity towards bias and preference and subjectivity, but I honestly and holistically would submit my Fiancee as the best woman in all chronology, geography, and my unchanging opinion. Bar none. If you disagree, I will fight you and your ignorance (gently).

Consequential to these remarkable and unexpected developments, focusing on academics has often been the last thing on my mind this year – and my marks will likely show the proof. I do expect to pass everything (some by the skins of their teeth), for which I am thankful and admittedly quite surprised in a couple of cases. Papers and topics for them filled my head throughout the year, and I feel some of my best writing ever was done – and some of the most mediocre as well. I discovered I rather dislike open-ended English essays, and rather love open-ended Philosophy essays. I nurtured a growing passion for poetry (which hasn’t really manifested itself in much writing for my poetry blog as of yet, but I’m sure it will come. Finally, I took to calling myself a “Philosophy and English joint major” where before I had called myself an “English and Philosophy joint major”. The reasoning is simple: I get excited about Philosophy. Almost always. English Literature, (especially the historical, remembering names and junk stuff) not so much.

Without further ado:

Annual Thirty “Best” Things of 0708 school year:
[IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER]
01. Going with Al & Shane & Gord to Barrie to commit random high-jinks.
02. Doing 2v2 Arenas with my friend “Serida” in the Fall (August-November ’07).
03. Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii – a more ‘epic win’ could not be conceived.
04. Getting myself into a real, honest-to-goodness relationship with someone-awesome.
05. Getting engaged to that same someone-awesome.
06. Thursday nights studying Colossians here at the house with my TCF small group.
07. Playing Dustin Kensrue’s “Blanket of Ghosts” with Todd at TCF Coffee House in honour of Robert Jordan. RIP.
08. Five months of unemployment (which was, simultaneously among the worst things).
09. No classes on Thursdays.
10. Getting both of my characters in WoW to level 70.
11. Quitting World of Warcraft in December. Again. For good this time. (It’s even uninstalled.)
12. Regular weekends in Toronto visiting Steph and so many other friends.
13. Trips way up North (South Porcupine) for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Premarital Counselling Round 1.
14. Mondays hanging out with Todd, talkin’ life.
15. Early Modern Philosophy with M. Neumann, and, more importantly, T. Anderson.
16. Acquiring a second family. /wave
17. TCF Retreats Fall & Winter.
18. Our new boarder – my friend Shane!
19. Finding my old green toque. Wearing it.
20. Walking the pooch (Nuka) late at night during warmer months.
21. Dangerous prayers.
22. Installing Covenant Eyes. Reaping the benefits.
23. Opening a PC Financial account. So. Good.
24. Studying Metaphysics, Epistemology, and 20th Century Continental Philosophy.
25. Joining up as a staff writer for The Phantom Tollbooth.
26. Not getting Windows Vista, a Mac, an iPod, a metal water bottle, a blackberry, etc. XP really is better…
27. Playing Team Fortress 2 and DotA with my brothers, friends, and enemies.
28. Having a sweet, sweet beard. Getting rid of a sweet, sweet beard.
29. Renos on my room being finished after a decade in limbo.
30. Stephanie.

Sleep soundly in silence
Knowing that we will never return
To what we once were
What was now is a distant memory
I guess that I should thank you
For freeing me from my naivety
-Project 86 “Breakdown in 3/4″

Annual Ten Most Important “New-To-Me” Records of 0708 school year:
[IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER]
01. Sev & Dust – “Back To Dust”
02. Thrice – “The Alchemy Index”
03. Project 86 – “Rival Factions”
04. As Cities Burn – “Come Now Sleep”
05. Matthew Good – “Hospital Music”
06. He Is Legend – “Suck Out The Poison”
07. Dashboard Confessional – “The Shade Of Poison Trees”
08. Lovedrug – “Everything Starts Where It Ends”
09. August Burns Red – “Messengers”
10. Oh, Sleeper – “When I Am God”

This is the sound that drives you to deny
These are the words that remind you we’re alive
This is the voice that haunts you in your sleep
Outdated, forgotten, we’re yesterday’s obsolete
-Project 86 “Breakdown in 3/4″

And my general plan now… is to rest. And work my (posterior) off. And contribute more than my share of the wedding planning. And have phun with friends. And read books I want to. And write lots of music reviews. And blog posts. And and and… get married.

Yes.