Almost every album a serious music listener examines will remind them of other pieces of music.  This is natural; not every record can be groundbreaking. On the other hand, an album that does nothing but  remind the listener of other pieces is not one worth spending too much time with.

Unfortunately for Michael Morton, aka Displacer, his latest album is one such piece of music. Upon first listen, I felt like I was transported back to the record-strewn teenage bedroom of a member-to-be of the Invisible Scratch Pickles. The amateurish, slow motion scratching reeks of someone struggling to get the technique down (and I should know, I’m terrible at it). All of the basslines have a real rudimentary, early hip-hop sound to them and, combined with the very distinct 808 drum programming, I somehow get caught up thinking about that D-Nice song “The TR 808 is Coming”. And even though The Witching Hour pales in comparison to anything in Brad Forste’s catalog, I’m left with a need, nay, a desire, to listen to some Mr. Dibbs beats to wash away the sounds of ineffective hip-hop.

I guess it’s not all bad for Displacer if this album instantly makes me think of numerous pillars of instrumental hip-hop. Yet, I’m still perplexed by the claims in the write-up on Tympanik Audio’s website. They claim his music to be groundbreaking, but with every element of his sound being so derivative, the only ground being broken here is the path I’m tearing through my carpet to get to my Mr. Dibbs records.

-Gabriel Bogart