Death Grips

The guys in Death Grips are not interested in following in anyone’s footsteps, hip-hop or otherwise. Adopting what drummer/percussionist Zach Hill refers to as “future primitivism,” the outfit uses whatever is readily at hand, including camcorders and cell phones, to capture sounds, and mulches a lot of raw audio into its palette, regardless of fidelity. Fittingly, last year’s Exmilitary sounds like an industrial dub-noise collage made from rough, recycled parts. While completing The Money Store this past April, Death Grips was signed to Epic. But after choosing not to wait for a vague 2013 release date for the followup, No Love Deep Web, the bandmembers released the album for free on the Internet, resulting in their being dropped from Epic. That shouldn’t be much of a setback for Death Grips, which has already established itself as one of the most vital acts going.