Lab Waste

Lab Waste, a project between solo rapper Subtitle and MC/producer Thavius Beck, can be as cryptic as the title of its debut, Zwarte Achtegrond (Dutch for "Black Background"). At least the music is: Beck's beats knock along, sly and off-kilter, even as they sometimes miss their mark. Meanwhile, the two rappers deal out non sequiturs (for example, the mordant come-on "Too Clothes/2 Clothes") and superscientifical theories pocked with a five-dollar vocabulary. "In this instance, the audio's the conduit/We time-travel through it," raps Beck on "Secret Elemental Block #001." Processed to near static, the uneven Zwarte Achtegrond is an interesting L.A. adventure packed with hidden remixes by Sixtoo, Dntel, and Daedelus.