] The Kleptones ? Bag of shite, mate. Went right downhill
] after that bloke Eric joined. I remember going to watch
] my mate Ralf back in the old days, y'know, when it was
] his band, doing his songs 'n' stuff and they were well
] wicked. The Free Butt, The Albert, The Pressure Point,
] they played everywhere. Not may people got to see 'em but
] when you're on at 7pm most people are still havin' their
] tea, splashing a bit of water on their face in readiness
] for the evening's entertainment, but those half a dozen
] people that had wandered into the gig straight from work
] loved it. Oh, and the sound guy from the Pressure Point
] said he knew someone who worked for EMI and he was gonna
] die when he heard them. So they were set, right ?

[ What they actually are is the avant-garde mashup darlings of the interweb. I was drawn in some time ago by a track from their "Yoshimi Battles the Hip-hop Robots" which blended Flaming Lips with Public Enemy's "By the time I get to Arizona" and fragments of MLK speech. We quickly got hold of the "Never Trust Originality" EP, which is also quite awesome.

I picked up another 2 sets last night, "From Detroit to J.A." and "A Night at the Hip-Hopera". The former I haven't tried out all of yet, but the latter is a mix of classic Queen tracks and modern rap/hip-hop from the likes of KRS-1, Kelis, ODB, De La Soul, Eminem Vanilla Ice, Aaliyah, Beastie Boys, Missy Elliott and a pile of others, not to mention clips from Aqua Teen Hunger force, Mallrats, and other such pop culture faves.

These guys are something close to the ultimate musical expression of our generation -- full of references that appeal to our endless love for trivia, plenty of beats and clever, non-obvious pairings which produce often surprising and exceptional new forms.

The tunes are available on their site via bittorrent, and I highly recommend all you kids check them out. -k]