Count Bass D
Dwight Spitz
Day By Day Entertainment

"Freedom" is sort of a heavy word to attach to a disc or a rapper, but it's clear that's what Dwight Spitz is all about. Locked in a room with only an Akai S-3000 sampler and an MPC-2000 drum machine to keep him company, beat-maker and rapper Count Bass D emerged with a fistful of assorted tracks as tight and unpredictable as anything on the market.

Like Blazing Arrow, the latest disc by Blackalicious, Dwight Spitz crackles with an artistic spark rarely felt within the confines of mainstream hip-hop. Lyrics hit the listener from all angles; Count Bass D's cliché-free rhymes make it impossible to guess what comes next.

But unlike Blazing Arrow's relentless surge of optimism, Dwight Spitz is all over the place. The disc runs from the cool of "August 25, 2001," to the wicked smooth of "Antemeridian," to the gorgeously jazzy "Jussa Player," probably the only hip-hop track in current circulation to begin with the Compaq computer boot-up sound.

Count Bass D goes for variety and impact; his brief, tight tracks often take a single sample, hammer it repeatedly, and drop neat sets of clear rhymes atop funky jazz loops and keyboard progressions that build low-tech Casio soundscapes. The result is a mosaic of sound that acts like musical caffeine; the shifts are sometimes stark, and the contrast keeps a listener awake and bobbing to the beats. It's throwback, and it's radical, echoing the stripped-down expertise that marked Beastie Boys spinoff BS2000.

A rapper who'll name Desmond Tutu or Timothy McVeigh as soon as he'll drop the Fat Boys or Mos Def, Count Bass D embroiders his streamlined melodies and samples with verbally agile rhymes that entertain and dazzle. Spoken out, Count Bass D's lyrics are cold and delicious. But even on paper, they pack weight, like this passage from "Dwight Spitz":

I got a plan like Built to Spill/
Do a US tour for nine months and then I chill/
First name Dwight/
Middle name is Conroy/
I used to truck more jewels than a convoy/
That dream is over I be broke and never sober/
I want two Neve EQs, not a Range Rover

Dwight Spitz defies categorization. It's not a smooth blast of polished radio fodder, or an in-your-face assault on societal wrongs; it's just an artist and his friends making songs. And that's a relief.

A sample on Dwight Spitz declares: "Real music's gonna last. All that other bullshit is here today, and gone tomorrow."

Tomorrow, Count Bass D will still be around.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)