Together alone Debut full-lengths from Bread and Moshe on Milled Pavement BY SAM PFEIFLE

Hip hop can make for dizzying connections. Sure, the world of rock can be hard to follow — what’s the deal with Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie, exactly? — but the rogue mercenary aspect of hip hop creates situations like the one inhabited by Moshe and Bread. Collaborators for half a decade now, they first teamed up as a DJ/MC team on the stage of the Stone Coast as part of an open mic that Moshe hosted with a number of other DJs. Soon they were two-fifths of kNOw Complex, teaming up with Wally Wentzel, Navillus, and Sontiago to form a group whose Machiagonne was much anticipated, but never materialized (Sontiago has the only existing copy, she says).

With kNOw Complex’s demise, Moshe became one-half of both Sontiago & Moshe and his project with Bread, Moshjose (Bread’s alternate handle seems to be Jose, when it’s not Joe). Plus, he started dabbling. He began hosting "The Lesson," a weekly night of DJing hip hop and electronica at the Mercury, with a group of DJs called the 12" Zombies (and others, many others). He founded Milled Pavement records, which does anything from promote shows by local artists on other labels to release records like what we’ve got now, his full-length follow up, Tending to the Sheep, to last year’s EP L’Chaim.

Meanwhile, Bread was getting back to making his own beats, sitting in with Sontiago and Moshe from time to time (and just about anybody else who wanted him on stage), working on projects with the likes of KGB (now known as Syn), basically exploring the possibilities of the local scene. Now, with one of the most anticipated hip-hop albums on the local scene, he’s releasing Peasant on Milled Pavement, linking up with Moshe once again.

Along the way, both of them have evolved as artists. Bread was at one time the freestyler to watch in Portland, known first as the guy who’d rap with Rustic Overtones, and for devastatingly quick vocals delivered in a stream that simply wore you down, Bread seeming to be performing almost exclusively for himself, sucking energy in and captivating the viewer in the process.

Now, though, Bread has become an artful songwriter, buying into the verse-chorus-verse structure and becoming far more thoughtful with his construction and presentation. Peasant is first and foremost a headphones album, something to which you really need to pay attention, which fits perfectly with a kid you can never find without his own headphones strapped to his skull. Like most great artists, Bread found introspection, or maybe just started using it to his advantage. Take the chorus to "Alone Type": "I’m kinda the alone type/ Just trying to get my dome right/ I keep my headphones tight/ I’m’a fight mine, you gotta fight your own fight."

It’s a statement that he’s not interested in being the hired gun anymore. He has a vision for himself.

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t show up on Moshe’s album. Tending to the Sheep will be familiar to hardcore local hip-hop heads. Bread, Sontiago, jdwalker, KGB, Brzowski, and Nomar Slevik provide vocals on 9 of the 14 proper tracks (there’s an intro, and outro, three remixes, and a hidden track to boot), with singer Raina Michalovic helping out from time to time. Moshe’s evolution has seen him drop his role as traditional DJ and move into the role of producer. He lays down the foundation for the song and then just gets out of the way.

"I do everything with software [mostly a program called Reason], and sampling obviously," Moshe says. "I don’t even really scratch anymore. I use a lot of soft synths, too. I leave all the DJing up to other DJs in this town. I’ve got five other DJs doing work on my album [DJs Rew, Kut Kaper, shAde, Mota, and Mayonnaise, to be precise]. All my favorite scratching DJs in this town. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t be doing it again."

This makes the remixes all the more interesting. There’s no way you’ll recognize the Agent 8 remix of "Miles Away." Agent takes Moshe’s dark brood and turns it manic, lending speed to anxiety and making things generally uncomfortable. As I’ve said before, Moshe’s production is not a friendly place. His instrumentals, like "Redeem All Sorrows," are often very disturbing universes, indeed. "Sorrows" features some kind of freakshow repeatedly yelling, "shut up," in the kind of anguish only experienced by the paranoid and schizophrenic. He’s being chased by a snare-heavy beat and troubled by storm clouds of deep synths. Moshe’s music makes me kind of antsy, unnerved, progressing as it does by such incremental steps from start to finish. The song finishes by admonishing, "and don’t come back." One wonders if Moshe is exorcising demons here.

He and Bread share a bit of that me-against-the-world outlook. Bread often refers to himself as So Solo, like he doesn’t need nobody, because, quite simply, "I make all my beats and all my rhymes." What’s he need anybody else for? Certainly not for critique. He’s already moved past initial efforts that others might have saved out of nostalgia. "When I set out trying to make my own album," he says, "to see if I could, I recorded all kinds of shit, and none of those songs ended up on the album."

That doesn’t mean he lacks for confidence, however. His "Breadtro," the first track on Peasant, is an extended sample of Carl Sandburg (following an introduction, fittingly, by someone else) describing Abraham Lincoln, except that every time Sandburg says "Abraham Lincoln," Bread cuts in "Bread." So we hear that "not often in the story of mankind has a man arrived on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog. There was in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace, unspeakable and perfect. There have come, across centuries, reports of men alleged to have these contrasts, and the incomparable Bread is an approach, if not a perfect realization, of this character."

The speaking is backed by a xylophone-sounding melody, along with an off-kilter beat that comes and goes to let certain sentences glow. There’s something really right about it — Carl Sandburg! On a hip-hop album. Why do I feel like Carl Sandburg would be an MC if he lived today? And that description of Lincoln is so beautiful. That Bread wants to both propagate that description and embody it says a lot about his goals.

Later, he expounds on this hard/soft dichotomy that every hip-hop artist must struggle with, on "Man Overboard": "Day by day darkness/ dwellin’ in starkness . . . This just prepares me for the hardest shit/ Let me forget the rest and focus on the art of it."

It’s a goal Moshe shares, one of emphasizing art and quality over commercial appeal and trying to deliver what you think people want. Tending to the Sheep, if anything, implies a desire to lead people to the things they don’t know they want, rather than watch them consume whatever’s put in front of their ravenous musical appetite. It’s an optimistic ideal in a way, that people are hungry for music, that they want quality, but that they just don’t know where to find it.

Moshe lets Brzowski and Nomar Slevik, in their capacity as Raygunomics, explain in "Elbow," where "the sheep are lined up to march off the cliff." The hip hop that leads them there is insignificant, ephemeral, without substance. Thus "You don’t exist, so throw in the towel sucker." But "Thanks for hating, that gives me great motivation." Maybe if commercial hip hop at least delivered a positive message, it wouldn’t be so bad — but you’ve seen the videos: bling, violence, objectified women. "Yo we’re branding the cattle," Nomar and Brzowski assert, "Nobody’s tending the sheep."

Perhaps this is Moshe’s greatest strength: as a leader of the local movement, encouraging continued exploration and creativity, providing a platform and a megaphone for others.

Sometimes, it might seem like an uphill climb. Both Bread and Moshe downplay the idea of touring to support these records. "We ain’t going on tour," Bread insists. "It’s impossible." This despite evidence to the contrary from peers like Sage Francis, Atmosphere, Slug, sole, and many others whose talent he has no problem equaling. It’s the angry tone of his track "Reaching for the Bandages" on Sheep. For some reason, on Moshe’s album we find a more aggressive Bread, with a deeper voice, possibly responding to the cacophony of Moshe’s pipe-banging industrial background. They’re "two motherfuckers right here with no managers."

These albums should put all of that in the past. Raygunomics refer to "the god Moshe," but if Moshe takes on the role of Moses instead, some people might just wind up in the promised land. Wherever that is.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com

Moshe and Bread play a co-CD-release show at SPACE, in Portland, on Friday, Feb. 18. Call (207) 828-5600. There will be guests a-plenty.