Eclectic Hip-Hop Crew Themselves Head Over

Musicologists can easily put the various branches of American hip-hop's family tree into a volume of categories: geography (East Coast, West Coast, "Dirty South"); fashion aesthetics (backpackers, bling, gangsta rap); and production values (slick Miami gloss, crunchy glitch-hop, old-school). They'd probably have a much harder time figuring out how to dissect Themselves, who perform at Aktovy Zal on Friday.Jeffrey "Jel" Logan and Adam "Doseone" Drucker are Themselves, a dark, giddy duo of MCs and producers from Oakland, California, who deliver intensely quick rhymes over paranoid, sinister beats and soundscapes, tying it all together with a strange ear for pop hooks. Their concerts in Russia this week — they also performed in St. Petersburg on Thursday — will be their first in the country, brought here on a whim by Moscow promoter Savier Khmelevsky."I just found out that they were planning a tour [in Europe] and decided not to let the opportunity slip away," explained Khmelevsky. "These guys haven't played in six years and have never been to Russia, and they're legends of underground hip-hop."After a six-year hiatus, Themselves have come back this year with two releases. The first, a free mixtape called "theFREEhoudini" available for download on Bay Area label Anticon's web site (www.anticon.com), is a tremendous wallop to the head of rapid-fire rapping and spliced-together beats. Over a little more than 30 minutes, "theFREEhoudini" features rhymes from all seven founding members of the Anticon movement and multiple guests. Spliced between the various musical sketches are musique concrete-esque snippets of Doseone freestyling with a group of students from his freestyle rap class in Oakland (the MC is a formidable wordsmith, having once battled Eminem in a freestyle rap contest). As one continuous track, the release is dizzying to say the least, but multiple listens reveal intricate nuances in both the verbal and the instrumental deliveries. But even for native English speakers, being able to fully absorb the intense syntactical puzzles Doseone delivers is a challenge."I think that Russians will focus more on the music and the performance," said Khmelevsky. "It's true, Doseone is going to bring some incomprehensible ravings that might be hard to understand, but that's not going to bother anyone."In the space between their last release, Themselves have stayed busy with various projects. 13 & God, their collaboration with German electronic act The Notwist, met with critical acclaim worldwide, as did their sextet Subtle, which utilizes a string section in addition to the trippy programming Themselves are known for. As if that's not enough, Doseone and Odd Nosdam — who was supposed to appear at the Russian concerts as well but ended up being too busy to travel — were part of another seminal Anticon act, cLOUDDEAD. The next full-length release from Themselves, "CrownsDown," will come out in August. Live, there's no telling what these artists will pull out of their multigenred hats, but it's guaranteed that Moscow is in for quite a lesson in rhyme skills, sample collage mania and some intense energy.Rounding off the bill will be an exciting performance from PSGR Zemli, a constantly changing team of musicians from Moscow's How2Make label. This time around, the group, which consists of label founder Dzhem, electronic artist Mujuice and Larik Surapov, will be performing songs from Surapov's releases on the label. This part of the show may contrast a bit with the dense, dark wordplay of Themselves, but that doesn't mean that there's no room for mutual influence.

"We don't know the guys from Themselves that well, but we love their music, and to some degree it has influenced our own," says Dzhem, born Sasha Kholenko. "I think we're going to be seen very differently [than Themselves] ... our music is less complicated but more upbeat."

Themselves play with PSGR Zemli at Aktovy Zal, Fri., May 8. 18/1 Perevedenovsky Pereulok. Metro Baumanskaya. 265-3935. www.aktzal.ru. Entrance 700 rubles.