Rhyming In Rainbows

Hippomothamus has released an intriguing little project called Rhyming In Rainbows, a hip-hop mixtape made from sampling Radiohead's new album In Rainbows (which, incidentally, you have through this weekend to download for whatever price you like before it's only available at full-price on CD). Each track to exclusively samples one Radiohead track, and mixes in vocals from a different MC/group. (Well, okay, the Beastie Boys appear twice, but otherwise, different each time).

As one might expect from an mixtape album, quality varies. Track 7, Jurassic 5's "linguistics" over samples from Radiohead's "Reckoner", is probably my favorite of the bunch, both for good matching and just because it's one of Radiohead's catchier tracks on the original album. Both track 3 and the first Beastie Boys track are also fairly good, though the second Beastie Boys track has somewhat muddied vocals, which is a shame as the samples from "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" are excellent backing.

The low point of the album is probably track 2, Mos Def's "Beef" over samples from "Bodysnatchers", which leaves something to be desired in terms of the matching. Still, the whole album is available for free download, or you can stream individual tracks off the site, so this may well merit a look.