“DD Review: Spectacular Diagnostics – Raw Studies.”

Score: 7.5/10

.

Like the more party-oriented Snowgoons, Spectacular Diagnostics are a production team out of Germany which puts together boom-bap LP’s employing mostly black American rappers to wreck shop on the tracks. Raw Studies, to its credit, feels just that — nothing is overproduced, rather favoring eerie, tense and jazzy MF Doom-like beats (these rappers in their best moments emulating the masked one as well), borrowing mid-song transition techniques from that and kung-fu samples from Wu-Tang, but not doing either one to where it will really pi** you off that much.

I first heard of Raw Studies off of Al.Divino’s Facebook promo, who is the first rapper to appear on the album. He’s got what I’d describe as a SHOWY delivery — in general it’s not bad, but lots of times I have no idea what he’s saying. Humorously, at one point one of his lines is “Tryin’ to rhyme like this might leave your mind strained”, and your first inclination of what to say is, yeah, it’s sounding like it’s leaving YOU little bit strained too, to say the least, as you come across his out-of-breath gasping every four bars. Still, he’ll at least keep your attention and give way concordantly to Estee Nack, who to my shock wasn’t one of the seven members of Killarmy. He bears more than a slight resemblance to that Wu-Tang label crew with his haughty delivery indiscreet way of describing violence with big words. I also got a pretty good sense of The Roots’ Malik B. from his rhyming, a sort of over-serious craft of rhyme compilation, rather than just telling a story, but still, the skill is there on a holistic level.

In case you hadn’t guessed yet, it’s pretty much the beats that sew this puppy together all over these cuts — “Palace” comes in utterly beautiful, composed of celestial, jazzy piano and light guitar all over a stark but booming kick drum. Grandmilly drapes himself vocally on the mix with some light scat and jabber just to sort of ground the music in American hip-hop, even though, again, the production team is of German origin here. So in other words, it’s a commendable exercise in diplomacy, which is certainly encouraging these days. “Iknowuknow” lunges in with impossibly grimy swagger and with this sweet sort of Dr. Dre “Purple Pills”-sounding bass that will cut through the proceedings like a dagger. But as with everything, there’s a balance, and up at the treble register is this sound which I think is an electric guitar spliced and looped into conversational melody which nicely straddles major and minor to give the song a gospel-y, Kanye type of feel. Sure, this Chris Crack is a no-good, declaring things like “I’m a pimp though”, but sh**, after all of this overly erudite nerd-rap we get all over this LP, it’s almost refreshing to hear some brat just spit some straight sh** that you can understand, even if he’s not your friend at the end of the day. My favorite rapper here is probably Cousin Feo, whose energetic delivery and street diction takes me back to the glory days of Wu-Tang big time.

Then getting to the beat for “Far from Holy,” you get this really juicy and organic-sounding snare, which I think is probably just done by the analog recording of a live drum kit. The effect is one of seasoned variety for this LP and definitely the mark of professionals in putting albums together, which is certainly in order considering this rapper named Ice Lord is saying things like “I’m the best / Only God comes the closest” and “Y’all ni**az bogus”.

 

79 thoughts on ““DD Review: Spectacular Diagnostics – <em>Raw Studies</em>.”

  1. Howdy! Do you know if they make any plugins to assist with Search Engine Optimization?
    I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very
    good results. If you know of any please share. Cheers!

    Here is my page: clubriders.men

  2. That is a very good tip particularly to those fresh to the
    blogosphere. Brief but very accurate information… Thank you for sharing this one.

    A must read post!

    Also visit my web site; wownova.de

  3. Greate article. Keep posting such kind of info on your site.
    Im really impressed by it.[X-N-E-W-L-I-N-S-P-I-N-X]Hey there, You’ve performed
    an incredible job. I will definitely digg it and in my view recommend to my friends.
    I am sure they will be benefited from this site.

    My homepage virtualchurchcamp.com

  4. I’d been honored to get a call from my friend
    as he discovered the important tips shared on the site.
    Examining your blog write-up is a real great experience.
    Thank you for thinking about readers just like me, and I desire for you the best of achievements like a professional in this field.

    Look at my page … http://www.craksracing.com/modules.php?name=Your_Account&op=userinfo&username=BatemanAmanda

  5. I together with my pals appeared to be studying the good secrets from your web site and then got a horrible
    feeling I never thanked the website owner for those
    tips. All the men became so warmed to see all of them and now have in reality been enjoying these things.
    Thanks for genuinely so considerate and also for
    obtaining some essential areas millions of individuals are really eager to be aware of.
    My very own sincere apologies for not expressing gratitude to earlier.

    Feel free to visit my webpage bao10jie.com

  6. hello there and thank you for your info – I’ve certainly picked up something new from right here.
    I did however expertise some technical issues using this website, since I experienced to
    reload the site a lot of times previous to
    I could get it to load correctly. I had been wondering
    if your web hosting is OK? Not that I am complaining, but slow loading instances times will sometimes affect your
    placement in google and can damage your high quality score if advertising and marketing
    with Adwords. Well I am adding this RSS to my email and could look out for much
    more of your respective intriguing content. Ensure that you update this
    again soon..

    Also visit my web site https://mobil-service.online/index.php?action=profile;u=59443

  7. Hey there this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors
    or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding
    know-how so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience.
    Any help would be enormously appreciated!

    Here is my blog – http://vetearii.free.fr/

  8. Good day! I could have sworn I?ve visited this web site before but after
    going through a few of the posts I realized it?s new to me.
    Anyways, I?m definitely delighted I found it and I?ll be bookmarking it and checking back frequently!

    Look into my blog; clubriders.men

  9. Thanks for every one of your efforts on this site.

    Kim enjoys carrying out investigation and it is simple to grasp why.
    All of us hear all concerning the compelling
    way you convey rewarding tips and tricks via this blog and
    as well strongly encourage participation from others on that concept
    then our own girl is certainly being taught a great deal.
    Enjoy the rest of the year. You have been performing a tremendous job.

    Also visit my webpage; frun-test.sakura.ne.jp

  10. I’m really loving the theme/design of your
    blog. Do you ever run into any internet browser compatibility
    problems? A small number of my blog visitors have complained about my blog not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great
    in Safari. Do you have any suggestions to help fix this issue?

    My blog post – mpc-install.com

  11. We would like to thank you all over again for the wonderful ideas you offered Janet
    when preparing a post-graduate research plus, most importantly, with regard to providing all the
    ideas in one blog post. Provided that we had known of
    your site a year ago, we will have been rescued from the unnecessary
    measures we were choosing. Thank you very much.

    Here is my site: http://www.youxi2020.cn/

  12. Undeniably believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason appeared to be on the
    internet the simplest thing to be aware of. I say
    to you, I certainly get irked while people think about worries that they just don’t
    know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and also defined out the whole
    thing without having side-effects , people can take a signal.

    Will probably be back to get more. Thanks

    Feel free to visit my site; Tri-Bol

  13. Simply desire to say your article is as surprising.
    The clearness in your post is simply nice and i can assume you’re an expert on this subject.

    Well with your permission allow me to grab your RSS feed to keep updated with forthcoming post.
    Thanks a million and please carry on the enjoyable work.

    Here is my web site :: Keto Vibe Pills Reviews

Leave a Comment