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about this album
This isn't a eulogy and it isn't a sob story, but some things need to be said. On March 30, 2018, we lost Alias, Brendon Whitney, 41, who not only cofounded Anticon, but through his lyrics gave the collective a big, bleeding heart, and with his production leant mood, beauty, and invention to every song he touched. To say that Bren left too soon is unfathomable understatement—he was on a break from the studio when it happened. But this is the part where he lives on. It's the part where two best friends, Alias and Adam "Doseone" Drucker, finally make the album they'd been meaning to for twenty years. Where two seasoned artists at the height of their abilities return to the spirit of collaboration that launched their careers and find that old fire waiting. Where, amid day jobs and a mild sense of encroaching obscurity, they made their best work, ever, together. Less Is Orchestra in part takes its name from Alias' instrumental approach, a minimal thing that somehow manages to define its very own sonic universe. Imagine a glistening black and purple mélange of non-genres—ride-out Zelda G-funk, chopped and screwed IDM, emotional-industrial banger music, clean glitch—echoing through a zero-gravity field of ice crystals, and you're most of the way there. He used to jokingly call it goth-hop which, we'll admit, is a catchier description. Alias composed these beats with Dose's voice in mind and it shows. The lithe-tongued rapper is a one-man posse on these songs, styling with abandon
