Awol One

Awol One fans fiending for the mythical Speakerface album will have to make due with Rebirth, a collection of songs that have appeared in a number of different places with varying degrees of rarity. But to help ease the pain of the wait, the Speakerface track "Sun Day Bloody Someday" is included. There's also an Evidence remix of "Agony," from Souldoubt, given a very different sound with some loud, banging piano keys and now re-titled as "Agony Ximer." Plus, there's the rare "Flying Spiders," Awol's contribution to a split twelve-inch with Xololanxinco. The rest of the tracks are from compilations and collections by other artists that feature Awol One as a guest. Songs are culled from classic compilations, like O.D.'s Beneath the Surface ("Piece of Heaven") and Fat Jack's Cater to the DJ ("For Me?"), as well as lesser known indie releases like DJ D's The Worker's Union ("Static") and Tommy V's Quarter Life Crisis ("Dumb"). There's even some Canadian content, thanks to a guest appearance by Awol One on Josh Martinez's "Wemon Loving Wemon," produced by DJ Moves. And no one is likely to forget the big-ass 2 Mex posse cut "Upsidedown 6," a potpourri of vocal styles. However, with these songs gathered from so many different sources, and many of them with Awolrus as only a guest, the album doesn't really have any cohesion. There's not really a bad song involved in this collection of "best of" rarities, but it's hard not to think of Rebirth as anything more than a dope collection of songs Awol fans will want to own, unless they already have most of the originals.