Watch Out for Animals

Food for Animals is making some noise, both literally and figuratively. The local electro-hip-hip duo has garnered lots of well-deserved acclaim for its relatively low-profile 2004 release, "Scavengers," on promising area label Muckamuck. "I don't write novels yet I write I raps/And I don't make music yet I make noise" raps MC Vulture Voltaire on one track, and it's a pretty accurate microcosm of FFA's sound. These aren't Pharrell/Timbaland beats, not by a long shot. These are grimy, claustrophobic, cut-and-paste sounds created by the group's other member, Ricky Rabbit, on his laptop. It's often a pretty intense onslaught, and it serves as an interesting juxtaposition to Voltaire's more conventional (but still not all that conventional) chest-thumping flow. Perhaps there aren't any big-studio movies in the group's immediate future, but this is a duo on the rise. FFA headlines DC Mass Vicissitude 2005: A Laptop Massacre tonight at DC9. Also on the bill are Philadelphia's Starkey, winner of the 2005 Mid-Atlantic Laptop Battle and Brooklyn's Unabomba featuring Lion and AWOL, who play an appealing mixture of glitch-hop, dancehall and ragga.

--David