CD, Force Of Nature, 2008
www.forceofnature.cc
Part alter ego to the blistering Mash-up Sound System, namely Concrete Cookie & the Dog (without the Dog) teams up with an unheard of artist for me, in the form of The Maggot Farmer. Given this, I could approach this album with open ears and genuine interest in the goods at hand. It’s a rare and treasured thing, nowadays.
What didn’t occur to me would be the ambient factor. I expected beats and plenty of them to boot. The latter of which, this is practically devoid. “Mondegreen” brings out a first for me, this being a matter of special environment with its own hidden pace. The first five tracks seem to fly by. Barely do the nigritude tones of “Richard III” filter through the speakers before the reality hits that you are half way through the album. Or so would it appear. Dark atmospherics usually take a hell of a lot longer than this to unfold and it’s this factor alone in which this release differs, compared to the compositions from other students who dabble in the art of oppressive ambience.
“Mondegreen” is aptly titled, an aural malapropism in the form of cold and distant atmospherics that fill a space, pad out small voids in time and are masked in the guise of straight-out-of-the-bag bleak ambient, dancing to a different fluidity that expresses itself underneath its shroud as anything but. In short, an engaging release that nods in the direction of other artists within its chosen genre, whilst keeping something back that marks out its own individuality.
[8/10]
— Tony Young