REMY: Album Review: High Elders

High Elders More Magick Auxiliary Phoenix Gentle Jones Album

High Elders, 'Dreams With Mephistopheles' (Auxiliary Phoenix Remix)

Info: The two members of transatlantic duo High Elders compliment each other perfectly again on their second album together, More Magick. Carlow mix-master Auxiliary Phoenix is probably the most exciting experimental hip-hop producer in the country at the moment and Delaware's Gentle Jones is an internationally acclaimed MC and DJ who has traversed many styles over his career including ska and punk. It's an interesting project, High Elders, which no doubt sees endless cyberspace travel between Ireland and the United States of mixes / vocals and samples. The album has already featured very favourably on Hot Press and like their previous work, has a lot of unique traits and oozes with originality.

Gentle Jones

More Magick features remixes of a number of the tracks from previously reviewed Forest of Pencils which was released late last year plus additional tracks to keep things fresh, but the best news is that it's completely free and you're only two clicks away from an mp3, FLAC or other format downloads via their Bandcamp page here. Personal favourites from the previous album, 'Surrounded By Lights' and 'Churches' (feat. Marchitect & Pooch) sound even better in their remixed versions. Of the new numbers 'Kingonashoestring' is fantastic, real old school hip-hop vibes and up tempo, it also features some great record scratching that is spattered throughout the album and brings you back to late-80's / early-90's effects, back when it was done properly.

High Elders, More Magick

MC Marchitect features again on 'Scientology', a humorous look at one of the world's less extreme religious ideologies.....! and reminded me a bit of Killer Mike's excellent track 'Reagan'. 'I'm Back' is another highlight, melding funky soulful backdrops and beats to Jones' high velocity rhyming. More Magick ends strongly with Auxiliary Phoenix's experimental talents all over the excellent instrumental electro 'Mean World' which also featured on Forest of Pencils, and a hard-hitting remix of 'URL' from Simteks and 5ifty$ix before ending on the philosophical 'God Is Inside You' taken from Gentle Jones' own Murderkill Hundred album. All in all a great compilation of tracks once again from High Elders, a team who appear to be constantly moving toward the next phase with high output not reducing the quality of the music in any way, I can't wait to hear their next album already and probably won't have to wait that long thankfully.