Stumped for what to get your mum for Mother’s Day? Unfurrow your brow – the answer is flowers of course! Blue Flowers to be precise. In fact why stop there? Why not go the whole hog and get her the full Octagonecologyst? Wait – what!? You’re going to get your mother a hip-hop LP named after a torturous bit of word play on the word ‘gynaecologist’?! Doctor what do you think? …I don’t want you to just explode all over the wall…control…control…controlled by gamma light! Earth people, I was born on Jupiter! Welcome to the freaky world of former Ultramagnetic MC Kool Keith Thornton and producer Dan The Automator whose classic, acid-fried, psychedelic hip-hop project Dr Octagon and LP Octagonecologyst first appeared in 1996 helping to pave the way for a slew of ‘underground’ hip-hop.
Twenty-one years later and, you guessed it, deluxe re-issue label Get On Down has repackaged what many view as Thornton’s finest hour for a new generation. Alright – probably the old generation with more money but let’s not quibble about that when there are questions like what shape box would it be most appropriate to package the LP in? Well, I think it’s got to be a custom eight-sider – an octagon if you will! And we’ll have to have three whole records inside! Three? The original version had less than twenty tracks! Ah yes, but this version has twenty-eight including a whole side of unreleased material: two new Automator remixes of Wild And Crazy and I’m Destructive made last year and three never-before-released cuts: Astro Embalming Fluid, Redeye, I’ll Be There For You. And it comes with the original Pushead cover art and a 40 page book of liner notes. My god! Bear witness!
(Out May on Get On Down)