Like most of the Anticon roster he's helped curate, Tim Holland, aka Sole, is a rapper-as-slam-poet, purposefully eschewing hip-hop iconogrphy in lieu of abstruse, intellectualized streams-of-consciousness over cold, unforgiving beats. Alongside fellow Anticon artists and former tourmates, Holland's website links to a Noam Chomsky torrent site and a database for vegetarian recipes, echoing his persona as a loquacious lefty, with equal tendencies toward introspection and anti-capitalism. Holland's keen eye toward self-branding, however, led to the Mansbestfriend series, on which he allows himself a high degree of experimental latitude, free of the burden of his more established moniker. On Poly.sci.187, Holland takes what some might see as too large a step into new territory, however. He completely excises his own lyrics, substituting archival digital audio clips of religious conservatives, popular culture oddities, and political dissidents-- thus emerging, more or less, as a DJ Shadow for the Huffington Post set.
Poly.sci came into being while Holland was touring Europe, a location doubly important for its geographic and ideological remove from the right-wing American political atmosphere. Fittingly, then, the record opens with "Dedemma Speaks", a bit of biographical role-play on which exiled early 20th century anarchist Emma Goldman is heard to say "I will leave the country rather than deny my ideas." An ominous, Endtroducing-style tableau underscores "The Teachings of Leviticus", over which a distorted female voice, culled from archive.org, recites bizarre anachronisms from the most politicized of Bible books, including: "If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death. He must also kill the animal." That the quote is not too dissimilar from something former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum actually said publicly is the song's most distressing element.
Later, "Spin the Humans" begins with the voice of a young boy, snatched from YouTube, advocating for peace in Lebanon, then giving way to Poly.sci's best instrumental moment, an insistent, darkly rhythmic Middle Eastern groove. The title of "Humans" is clarified at the song's end, when Holland abruptly cuts in audio from an episode of "Wheel of Fortune" taped in the New Orleans Superdome, complete with over-excited, whooping American college students eagerly awaiting cash and prizes. As an attempted political manifesto, the jarring transition could certainly be regarded as binaristic, but it's also thought provoking and entertaining, which counts nearly as much with the milieu is Web 2.0 musique concrète.
Holland devotes as much time for less political instrumental excursions as well, and with a good degree of success. "Wilting Onward", which he describes in the liner notes as emerging from "a time period when I had basically gotten sick of the sound of my own voice and everything I have to say," surrounds a plaintive female vocal sample with menacing drums and increasing layers of fuzz, before segueing nicely into the dissonant, string-laden ambience of "High Noon and Sobered". "Allieverwanted" and "Stuck in My Head Since I Was 12" return to the old-school rap on which Holland was weaned, and late-album highlight "Missile Defense" is tumultuous drum-and-bass shoegaze.
The Mansbestfriend series was inaugurated when Holland realized the potential of wholly computerized modes of production, and acquired its title from the nickname he gave his Mac G4. While Poly.sci might risk alienating the fervent fanbase he's built through his sui generis flow, it's still the most complete realization of his original impulse. More importantly, though, and to Holland's credit as a producer, Poly.sci proves that he can remove his signature musical element and still create a record that pushes many of the same affective buttons while moving out in unconventional directions. Rappers like Sole-- strident, politically and tech-savvy, Caucasian-- do share one linguistic affinity with the progressive activists they often strive to emulate: they often overspeak the boundaries of their chosen medium. The rap idiom, like the news media, operates most efficiently when filled with short, cadenced blurbs of sound; in this sort of environment, more potent messages can be delivered when the speaker himself pipes down and lets others do the talking.
