So you're on the bus, gnawing the caps off Negra Modelos with your already well-rounded incisors like some desperate and retarded lone wolf, hunkered down deep into the brown plastic seats, windows open not only to repel the heavy footstink of passed out hobos, but to taste the late night air yourself, to have it slap you gently in the face and flood you with ideas and plans and songs that come so quick you can only get a fraction of them down in yer little Kerouac notebook before they're lost again. I have a feeling Lloop's "Bulbbs" (theAgriculture/US/CD) was born out of just this sort of love affair with inner city late nights and mass transit grime. The hypnotic rhythm of empty streets, visions out the bus window, shadows come alive. Ghost figures spread wheatpaste out like canvas. Toph One
Its moment may have come and gone, but this mix from New York Illbient stalwart Lloop was made six years ago and, more importantly, still sounds pretty good. Middle Eastern drones, backwards masking, ethereal chorales, trudging HipHop beats, dropout, whistling kettles, cicadas, self-help mantras about yawning: you know the score. Peter Shapiro
In 1994, Lloop (one half of the New York outfit WE') recorded "Bulbbs", a sampler-created mixtape that took the dub, ambient and hip-hop music fueling the New York experimental electronic scene and warped them into a haunting audio collage that reflected the city's intense clash of urban cultures. The tape became something treasured secret amongst Lloop's colleagues, as dubbed copies were passed along to those in the know before the masters were "misplaced". But DJ Olive and Jameson of theAgriculture label have found and remastered the recording, making the ambiance available to the masses for the first time. "Bulbbs" is must hear not only due to its important place in the history of New York's experimental electronic music scene, but because his dreamy psychedelia and narcotic hip-hop musings result in a timeless, beautifully warped masterpiece that deserves immediate digesting. M. Tye Comer