Underground hip-hop titans Atmosphere have just released an action-packed new music video for their song “Barcade” featuring MF DOOM and Aesop Rock. Along with the new music video, Atmosphere have also released their new album Word? Via Rhymesayers Entertainment. 

The music video, directed by Rob Shaw, is an action-packed animated thriller where each rapper is depicted as their own 90’s console-inspired video game boss character. The first boss is Aesop Rock, who appears as a maniacal killer plant battling a video game avatar with arrows and swords. Next comes the late great MF DOOM, who appears as a collection of space satellites that take the form of his mask. As he raps he’s battling a starship. Finally, the last boss is Slug who appears as a demented, yellow-toothed monster, fighting a character in a space suit. The entire video is trippy but keeps the retro video game theme. 

The song meshes smoothly with the visuals and the transitions are perfect. There are never any breaks between the verses; MF DOOM’s verse starts seamlessly right after Aesop Rock and the effect is that it hits very hard. The beat is extremely off-kilter, featuring a dissonant synth melody, a deep rhythmic synth bass and hard drums. It sounds very futuristic yet also very dark at the same time. The hi-hat and snare give a great contrast to the low pitched bass with its high frequency sounds that make the song sound very full. Every musical aspect comes together to create a very hard track. 

In August, Atmosphere released a 3-track single which included “Strung” [feat. Musab], “Sleepless” [feat. Nino Bless] and “Clocked.” Atmosphere also recently completed a 17-date co-headlining tour with Cypress Hill. The tour took place exclusively in August and stuck to the western half of the US, only going as far east as Texas. 

Photo credit: Raymond Flotat