Cities Without Houses

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins hollers out, “I put a spell on you / Cause your mine” right at the onset of Man Mantis’ hypnotic new collection of instrumental hip-hop, Cities Without Houses. Scratching against spooky plucked and mutated strings, those words—plastered up and down album opener “Come Into My Parlor”—simultaneously signal there could be danger ahead while compelling the helpless listener to follow them inside.

That same sense of duality swirls around the Mantis himself, Madison’s cartoon hip-hop hero (or villain?) and the brilliant, hyper-prolific producer behind such projects as Dumate, Stink Tank, IceMantis, and the Billie James Project. Of course, Mitch Pond a.k.a. Man Mantis is as nice a guy as you’ll ever meet. But at the turntables, head rhythmically nodding behind his eerie, handmade insect mask, he appears as a menacing figure. Those two sides battle for prominence throughout Cities. The good side of Mantis rules the sprite, chirping “Les Bailenes” and the twinkling shudder of “Teacups Of Our Ashes,” a densely layered track that piles samples upon samples for a shimmering effect. But Mantis is at his best when he allows a bit of mystery to cloudy up the mix, like the Hammond organ haze that surges beneath the exotic strings, robot buzz, and distant vocal loop of “Minor Aches And Pains,” a track that deftly channels Deadringer era RJD2.

Mantis never seems as comfortable living behind his strange persona as on album highlight “Boom Cloud.” A squelched bassline emits in fragments behind vinyl crackle and boom-bap drums as reverberated synths throb and build to alien-sounding peaks, creating an unfamiliar, extraterrestrial landscape, a place only the insect-man knows. The mildly 8-bit accents on the distorted science-fiction soundtrack “Sea Ambulance,” along with the heavily warped French lyrics arriving late, create a similar unfamiliar yet inviting feeling.

Only after a couple of listens do you really start to notice that Cities is devoid of rhymes or guest appearances, which might seem odd for a producer so open to collaboration, but Mantis clearly intended to create an instrumental hip-hop album in the truest sense. Besides, by weaving so much character along with all the varying aspects of himself into the album, he’s created a strange, engrossing world all on his own.

Cities Without Houses is available on Man Mantis' Bandcamp site.