In my normal everyday perusals of the internet I recently ran across an amazing yet relatively unknown to these parts nerdcore hip hop artist. The one I speak of is Washington DC based Criss Chords. This artist has released two impressive albums this year. In April we got his debut mixtape Misadventures of the Geek (download it in this myspace blog or directly from zshare), which is a fantiastic 16 track album over tracks from Final Fantasy to Sonic the Hedgehog and even Microsoft Windows start up noises. Tons of catchy tracks about tons of nerdy subjects like comics, cartoons, computers, and video games, with an underground hip hop swagger that lends the album a great feel.
The second of what seems to be a trilogy of nerdy based hip hop albums is the phenomenal Super Gizmo World album (also available to download in this myspace blog or directly from zshare). This album was my first introduction to Criss Chords and the album kicks off with an amazingly high speed rap over an equally fast Sonic the Hedgehog track. It kicks off the album really well and gives you a distinct feel for Criss Chords style. From here the listener is taken through a love song via a Kirby beat, some lines about Super Smash Bros with a KK Slider song, along with mainstay nerdcore staple tracks like Mega Man with the track Mega Cloud 9, and Zelda with Flyrule Temple. This album also steps things up with 21 amazing tracks clocking in at well over an hour of great songs.
Be sure to download and give both of these free albums a listen. They are definitely many stand out tracks and clever lines and ideas in these two albums. As you can figure as well, I am definitely looking forward to the third installment of this nerdy trilogy!