Skip to main content[POSTMODERN HIP-HOP] I don't really know what to call MacGregor Campbell (a.k.a. Main Sequence) of Bridgetown Breaks Records. Composer? Curator? Producer? DJ? As the man behind the sample-fueled The Ownership Society, a schizophrenic album that orbits crookedly around themes of conspiracy theory and bad government, he's all of those things.
Similar in feel to DJ Shadow's famed Entroducing, The Ownership Society (which is named, Campbell says, after "a re-contextualized buzz phrase from Bush's attempt to get rid of Social Security") is a collage of old radio, film and television voices that act as mouthpieces for the artist's own feelings. And, also like Entroducing, Sequence uses those disembodied voices to cut through spacey, soundtrack-worthy instrumentals. Taken individually, the vocal samples often seem random: They range from comically outdated (a radio personality asking, "Does my TV set use more electricity than an electric chair?") and creepy (an audibly shaken dude explaining with fervor, "You and I can be happy—not just now, but for the next 20 minutes") to mysterious ("For 3,000 years, men gazed at the far-off moon, and dreamed of going there someday"). Despite Sequence's tendency to thematically wander ("Atlanta" seems to be about mind control, then makes gratuitous mention of "chicken burgers" and "almost indecently perfect pancakes"), Society remains coherent—if only in its disorder.
A real, live MC, Loc Thiese, is featured on "Look" and "Pay to Play," but even Thiese's rhymes are random—much like the sampled personalities that precede and follow him. Spouting conspiracy theories on California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Enron over soulful harp tones or fuzzed-out, bunker-busting machinery beats, Thiese does keep in line, however, with Society's general tone of discontentment. In fact, it's only on instrumental-leaning tracks like "Fader" and "Untitled"—which pair multiple clean drum breaks with melodic, muted strings—that Sequence offers brief escapes from a pervasive dissatisfaction with his government and countrymen.
Puppeteer. Maybe that's the best title for Main Sequence, who speaks vicariously through his splintered, sound-bitten victims, transforming them from forgotten fragments of pop culture into unwitting spokespersons for the coming revolution. Regardless of his title, schizophrenic times demand schizophrenic art: In that respect, Main Sequence is among the masters.
WWeek 2015