If you were to brainstorm regarding those with the tightest flow in the country, Dialectrix would be at the pointy end of the shortlist undoubtedly.
If you were to brainstorm regarding those with the tightest flow in the country, Dialectrix would be at the pointy end of the shortlist undoubtedly. The Sydney MC impressed many with his debut LP Cycles Of Survival in 2008. Bar after bar of razor-sharp diction characterised the classy debut. Dialectrix [real name Ryan Leaf] has since become a household name for your regular Aussie rap fan after Cycles Of Survival (2008) and consolidated public kudos with his second full-length offering Audio Projectile released on September 17.
Dialectrix renders a little more insight into the new disc and how it differs from Cycles Of Survival.
“Plutonic Lab produced the whole thing and all of the production and recording took place at Plutonic Labs studio in Footscray. Audio Projectile differs from my first solo album significantly and it is quite a dense album in comparison. Cycles Of Survival was written at a strange time period of my life where I was seeking stability in a lot of ways and that was reflected in that album. Cycles had a conventional, intelligible quality to it which suited me at that time.” He now set’s out the volatile qualities of the new record that make it such a different creature to what preceded it, “Audio Projectile is more experimental and diverse. But at the same time I think its sound is very traditional.”
The experimentation present on Audio Projectile is no more apparent than in Dialectrix’s rejuvenated rhyme patterns and delivery. Having essentially perfected a metrically sound fast rap approach, it makes perfect sense that the man would be eager to take things to another level. He describes the progression, “Changing my style of writing and delivery has been an incredibly difficult task. My first recordings that I ever did years ago were sloppy, messy and out of place.
As I grew as a lyricist and a vocalist I learnt techniques on how to tighten it all up, you learn different mechanisms of writing and recording which help what you’re doing to become seamless and metrically perfect.” He now laments his quest for perfect rap diction, “But, with that, I found that the more you perfect something the more boring and robotic it all becomes. I wanted to try and enhance my character to what I was doing essentially, some people call that ‘swagger’ but that is a term that I hate! It’s more just growing as a vocalist.”
Many around the country have been singing Dialectrix’s praises for some time now. So does this acclaim transfer any additional considerations when it comes time to pen new material? “When I take other peoples point of view into account (even my closest peers) I tend to get very confused! Everyone has their own definition of what is good, bad, skilled or shit, if I start thinking about what people want or expect I start to get a whole lot of conflicting ideas and think too much about shit. In the end my own expectations are always more daunting than anyone else’s and that drives me more than any public expectation.”
Listening to the depth of some of the concepts Dialectrix speaks about on the record, it hardly comes as a surprise that the man is constantly mulling things over. Fly On The Wall in particular is a delightfully cryptic account of financial difficulties amongst other things. Dialectrix explains the ideas behind the lyrics, “Basically I had a stint of severe poverty due to a family tragedy at that time I was working on the most affluent properties in this country as a tradesman. I came up with an idea to tell a story from the perspective of a fly and draw parallels to the whole ‘bottom of the food chain’ thing in respect to the working class and their role from an economic stand point.” The resonance of the subject matter clings to the words like dew on a spring morning, “The song is complicated and was written at an immensely emotional time for me. It was a cryptic way to express my feelings toward class distinction and was the hardest song I have ever written.”
With so much intrigue and mystique throughout the words and sounds, the title Fly On The Wall seems to be a simple enough statement. Dialectrix articulates the train of thought behind the title, “The title came from an image idea Pluto had for the cover of the album…that being a kid throwing a brick through a window, I then took one of the spare instrumentals and wrote around that concept and then the track and title fell into place [although the front cover idea eventually changed].”
Dialectrix [AUS] plays Obese Block Party feat. Mantra, Illy, M-Phazes and some of the best in the Aussie Hip-hop establishment at The Palace Theatre on Friday October 8. The new album Audio Projectile is out now on Obese Records.
