cokemachineglow.com: Dälek has released one of 2005’s most curious albums, and possibly one of its best: a roaring bitch of a hip-hop noise album that screams and burns and shatters and coughs up blood to spit in your ears. Featuring shimmering, intricate industrial horrorscapes, wicked turntablism, slow and dirty beats and a brooding emcee named Dälek, the collective slays. But apparently, Dälek exists in some weird nexus between the experimental metal and hip-hop crowd, whining with too much tight turntablism and rapping for the experimental metal crowd and too much massive industrial droning and fractured noise for backpackers. It’s perhaps fitting that neither side will claim Dälek, because, frankly, the group deserves a shelf to itself. It’s also fitting that they’ve found a home at Ipecac, experimental vocalist Mike Patton’s label. The sound Dälek has created is certainly experimental and is truly massive. Octopus, the man behind the soundscapes, has stripped out all the bells and whistles that complicated the group’s sound on From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots and left a swirling, heavy husk. The “absence” the title refers to is wonderfully crafted emptiness lurking between the stuttered beats and the absence of any extraneous sound that may have been kicking around last time. What’s left is a mission statement writ in noise--copiously layered and sickly constructed, incredibly effective in amplifying Dälek’s mainly straightforward verses. Opener “Distorted Prose