Mobius Band ”I Just Turned 18”
The Loving Sounds of Static, 2005 • Download

Exhibit A: Last weekend, Dipset MC Jim Jones showed up at Death By Audio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to see Das Racist and Snakes Say Hisss. He arrived with Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash in tow. No, really. They watched the entire show and then at the end of the night — shortly before the cops showed up — Jones grabbed the mic for a Snakes Say Hisss collaboration. More unsettling than that: It was good.

Exhibit B: I was coming home on the subway last night when a song I couldn’t recognize came on. I was listening to an iPod Shuffle at the time, so there was no way to know what it is. The song sounded vaguely electronic, so my first assumption was that it was a deep cut on a Morr Music compilation. But the voice sounded too familiar, and when the guitars kicked in, I started to think it might be … something from the new Switchfoot album. When I finally had the chance to investigate, I realized it was an old Mobius Band track on Ghostly International. More unsettling than that: He does kind of sound like the dude from Switchfoot.

Findings of Fact: Holding on to any one genre at this junction in music history is pointless. One man’s Dipset is another man’s DIY punk show. One man’s Mobius Band is another man’s Switchfoot. It wasn’t always this way.