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Funny what the human element can do.
With their recorded work, Dälek make some of the most unrelentingly grim hip-hop. Steeped in inventive sonic explorations based on the manipulation of electronics and samples, the result is squalls and bogs of industrial noise. Wed to Will “MC Dälek” Brooks’ steely-eyed sociopolitical observations and critiques, the combination of his tight rhyme flow, his bleak subject matter and the sound surrounding his spitting make for an intimidatingly singular experience. It’s easy to appreciate the trio for its originality and nigh merciless sonic assault, but it can be a bit of rough sloughing for anyone searching for even the merest glimmer of light.
Seeing Brooks, DJ rEk and electronics manipulator Mikey “Destructo Swarmbots” Mantec throw down Monday night at the Cactus Club underscored why the trio isn’t bigger on the festival circuit, but watching them commit to their uncompromising aesthetic on stage was both illuminating and engrossing.
Their seven-number, encore-free set was as long as their seventh and latest long-player, Asphalt For Eden, from which they drew heavily. At times, rEk’s turntablism and Mantiec’s controlled cacophony nearly drowned out Brooks’ vocal contributions, though that may have made for as much of the point as any other facet of Dälek’s performance. When the rapper could be heard over the sumptuously sullen din of his accomplices—as on the tune from which their current tour takes its name, “Guaranteed Struggle,
