Critic's Choice

"What if the Devil stole your president? Would you wait for Dan Rather with a clown nose and his hair on fire? Would you trust him like George Washington with your credit card and PIN? Or do you cut a hole in the roof of hell and milk a star-spangled cow above it, in broad daylight, getting milk on the damned?" While not specifically questioning the forty-ounce wisdom of 50 Cent, MC Doseone (Idaho-bred Adam Drucker from cLOUDDEAD) offers a surreal and lyrically refreshing alternative to premeditated gangsta malarkey and boring battle rap. Themselves, a two-man operation that features the nasal-toned Doseone and producer Jel (Jeffrey Logan of Deep Puddle Dynamics), is one of the most active units of the San Francisco-based anticon collective. Celebrating cerebral geek-hop without a defined agenda, the curious duo (performing Saturday, November 8, at the Larimer Lounge with Clue to Kalo, Sunsoup, the Strange US and Freeform PR) blends staggering, ambient samples and unexpected, distorted, bass-heavy beats with a tragic stream of consciousness that castrates meaning before your very ears. Irony-free and well-behaved, the pair digs through relatively ancient crates, inspired by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. Despite it all, Themselves somehow manage to sound relevant and original, doodling in the margins of the collective unconscious and creating what Doseone once described as "music that talks to itself." Rest assured, playa hatas: You'll love it "like a fat kid love cake" -- but for different reasons.