Tones, Drones & Broken Bones artwork

Tones, Drones & Broken Bones

Dumb Hero Records DUMH002, Sept 2008

  1. Street By Street
  2. Dumb Heroes (Ghostwriters)*
  3. Rag & Bone Beat
  4. Out Of The Cities & Into The Trees
  5. She Binds Books
  6. Interlude
  7. The Past Unfurled Before Us
  8. Black Hearted Bastards**
  9. Ghost Beat Returns
  10. 1985***
  11. The Whisky Fist
  • * feat. Laughing Gear
  • ** feat. Harlequinade
  • *** feat. John Sullivan

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Second Kobra Audio Labs album, again on limited CD release but available to buy as a download. CD contains two extra tracks. Mastered at Audible Oddities, Oakland CA.

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Tones, Drones & Broken Bones is also available in a double pack alongside Sunshine, Shadows & Luck.

Wishaw’s very own DJ Shadow is back with a second album of sweet beats… [h]is brand of experimental hip hop can draw you in with mesmerising belly dancing like on Rag & Bone Beat or blissed out She Binds Books but just as quickly push you away with the jaw crunching jabbering noise of Black Hearted Bastards which features Edinburgh MC Harlequinade or the brain liquefying The Whisky Fist which samples bootleg tapes of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s live noise. What a trip.

The Daily Record, 22 Aug 2008

With new LP, Tones, Drones and Broken Bones, K.A.L. moves into more futuristic territory. Like fellow Scottish hip-hoppers Eaters and Penpushers, he has abandoned soundscapes that depict a degraded, broken present in favour of beats and sounds that construct a wonky, multi-cultural, imminent future… Sitars and cymbals ride electronic washes of sound on Rag and Bone Beat, while Eaters vocalist Laughing Gear pays tribute to artists such as Grant Morrison, David Lynch and Alan Moore on Dumb Heroes.

Weaponizer

I haven’t been paying that much attention to downtempo instrumental hip hop in 2008, [but] this understated set shows definite promise… chill out trip hop this is not… Deep-n-disturbing it may at first sound, but when the real world industrial noise backing with fractured vocals and violin samples blend to make Ghost Beat Returns then you know that it wont be too long before someone gets in touch with Mark for advice on how to soundtrack their slash-n-burn thriller killer movie.

ireallylovemusic, 7 Aug 2008