Chopper on iTunes, Hoods pull strings

Download “The Heist” (mp3)
from “Interview With A Madman”
by Mark ‘Chopper’ Read
Rott’n Records

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Buy at eMusic

More On This Album

It would appear that one of Australia’s more novel hip hop releases, the album from our most self-celebrated and indiscriminately entreprenuerial criminal Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read, is now available through digital music services. Interview with a Madman is as much about the hilarious autobiographical skits as it is about Uncle Chop Chop’s “flows”, even if the guests do their best to inject the release with a bit of cred. The ever-gory Necro fits in perfectly and the beats, by the likes of Simplex (Adelaide’s Terra Firma) keep it all feeling like a soundtrack to the Melbourne underworld.

For a taster, here’s “The Heist”, produced by Nino Brown and featuring Anecdote and Justice dropping verses around Chopper’s spoken word-ish material.

Chopper on MySpace

Meanwhile, Obese Records have scored themselves a nice little feature on the Aussie iTunes store and The Hard Road unsurprisingly remains one of the most consistently popular hip hop tracks on the site. Speaking of which, the Hilltop Hoods are following in the path of Portishead and Metallica by preparing an orchestra-accompanied version of the multi-award winning album, presumably a la their performance of the title track at last year’s ARIA awards, but without the accompanying suspect sound mixing. Will The Hard Road Restrung convert classical purists to Aussie hip-hop, or at least open some minds? Will the Hoods launch the album at the Sydney Opera House? I’m willing to bet they will.

EDIT: The Adelaide launch was announced about the same time I posted the above. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will perform with the Hoods on May 12 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Purported to be the trio’s only South Autralian performance for 2007, this doesn’t necessarily rule out a SOH launch in NSW. The latter half of the year will see the Hoods, who have hit high orbit in the Oz indie music stratosphere, attempt to crack overseas markets.

Hilltop Hoods on MySpace