Audio By Carbonatix
Keep Westword Free
We’re $1,500 away from our spring campaign goal!
We’re aiming to raise $20,000. Your support ensures Westword can continue watching out for you and our community. No paywall. Always accessible. Daily online and weekly in print.
Robert Betts, aka Recone Helmut, who’s presently splitting his time between Denver and Brooklyn, has been fiddling about with electronics since the ’90s, first with LD-50 and then under the pH-10 banner. But on largely instrumental numbers such as “Serious Delirium,” his formula — heavy grooves interspersed with vocal samples — doesn’t seem as fresh as it did during the Clinton administration. Fortunately, tunes that team him with guest MCs leap off the plastic — especially those featuring Pete Miser. “Enter the Underground” is a surefire party starter, while “BK United” is jammed with phallic-oriented hilarity; after Miser takes a shot at rappers who only “boast and brag about their penis,” he announces, “Even masturbating next to me, you couldn’t come close.” Helmut’s Miserly decision definitely pays dividends.
— Roberts