Bleep

The meeting of two great minds, Moor Mother and DJ Haram follow up their 2018 debut with their first full length record as 700 Bliss. Nothing To Declare strikes a balance between avant experimentalism and off-kilter club electronics; its varied selection of tracks pair together Moor Mother’s excellent gruff poetry and experimental rap with a heady mix of deconstructed beats, sound collage, and playful skits.

Known for her densely layered solo material, Moor Mother’s pen game is particularly unapologetic on Nothing To Declare, matched by the frayed edges DJ Haram tears into these songs with her often foreboding rhythms. As much as the album is shadowed in a dark and grimy aesthetic, however, there’s an undeniable sense of fun present in the cartoonish adlibs and the tongue in cheek ‘Easyjet’ skit, alongside an array of collaborators decorating 700 Bliss’s skeletal sound with harmony and seismic power.

Liquidised beats on ‘Totally Spies’ make way for a bassline with hydraulic force, serrating Lafawndah’s spectral vocals. ‘Nightflame’ ripples and rumbles with a dub tinged beat, skittering drums underscoring Moor Mother’s stream-of-consciousness flow and Orion Sun’s tender additions. The full bodied ‘Crown’ meanwhile explores a more emotional progression, despondent guitar strumming to the hook “I have nothing to claim but everything to break”.

Moor Mother and DJ Haram present forward-thinking music absolutely not to be missed, and something entirely new from these two distinct artists.