Buck 65 – Secret House Against The World
(2005 Warner Music)

In which everyone’s favourite Canadian alternative rapper embarks on a peculiar new country and western direction. Think Beck’s Odelay! sung by Johnny Cash and without the irony, and you’ll get some of the way there.

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Richard Terfry became obsessed with music, and especially hip hop, at an early age. From obsessively collecting records (he claims to currently own over 35,000) it was just a small step to recording his own material. His first tape, Chin Music, was put out in 1992 under the name Stinkin’ Rich. A few releases later he changed his name to Buck 65 and eventually signed to Warner Music.

“Hip hop music ruined my life,” he growls on Surrendering to Strangeness, and indeed he appears to have all but abandoned rap and straightforward hip hop beats in favour of “deep fried blues” and angular electro-rock. There has always had a bit of a blues thing going on in Buck’s music, but these whiskey-fuelled songs of betrayal and “black angels” push it right to the forefront.

It’s not all countrified doom and gloom though. Drawing Curtains, a duet between Buck and his fiancée Claire Berest, is fantastic. Sung half in English, half in French it’s hypnotic and very sexy. On Kennedy Killed The Hat he pulls off a pretty good Iggy Pop impression, and the influence of art rock band, Tortoise (who helped out with the record), is strongly felt throughout.

Hip hop purists will moan about this move into singing rather than straightforward rapping, but hip hop purists can get lost. This is the best thing Buck 65’s ever done and sees him moving in a bold new direction. More please.