When noisy Brooklyn-based no-wave outfit the Dreebs called it a day in 2014, the last thing I expected to arise from the fallout was really great hip-hop. The Dreebs were the deranged trio of vocalist and electric violinist Adam Markiewicz, drummer Shannon Sigley, and prepared-guitar player Jordan Bernstein, and on their final record, Bait an Orchard (on via Rotted Tooth Recordings, run by former Oozing Wound drummer Kyle Reynolds), they pounded out an alien racket. But last month, Bernstein released The Wallet under the alias Jordonna, and he’s taken his new project into the experimental hip-hop world.
On The Wallet, Bernstein uses his expertise in experimental prepared guitar to craft spacey, psychedelic beats, and he raps over them in an introspective, trippy baritone. This week he released a new video for “The Crack,” the closing song on The Wallet (and today’s 12 O’Clock Track). It’s a twisted, lo-fi journey around a late-night casino and into its attached hotel, its creepy vibes perfectly complementing the song’s eerie beat and dark, drugged-out rhyming. Check it out below.
