Students of poetry know about synesthesia: It’s the use of one kind of sensory descriptor to illustrate another sense, as in an acidic tone of voice or a blue mood. Synesthesia also is a condition wherein people have difficulty distinguishing between various sensory inputs, identifying certain letters always with specific colors, or tasting shapes along with particular flavors. But just as synesthesia is a tool in verse, so is it something of a gift as well as a curse for those who suffer from it. Mustn’t life be more beautiful when your loved one’s names are made up of colors, or the smell of night-blooming jasmine triggers a tinkle of gentle bells in your nerve net?
And so it is when three old friends — two MCs and a DJ with undeniable talent and vision — come together in a project long arriving. If you think you’re too good to move your ass/Then take your narrow tail to the back of the class, goes the Perceptionists‘ “Blo.” Yeah, I know we’re known for taking facts to the mass/Me and Mr. Lif back-to-back for the past/Decade now, we’re moving on to the next phase/New album new tour let’s get paid. That tour — to promote Akrobatic, Mr. Lif, and DJ Fakts One’s much-awaited full-length collaboration, Black Dialogue — touches down at West O’s LoBot Gallery Friday, and will be sure to test your narrow tail’s bounceability far more than their show at Bottom of the Hill the night before (sorry, little Bottom, but big-ass warehouses are better to move in).
Black Dialogue, out in March, is sure to be one of the biggest underground hip-hop releases of the year. Featuring nimble rhymes about Dubya, crackhead DJs, romance and, of course, rocking the party; production by Fakts One, El-P, Willie Evans Jr. (helming the sweet, psychedelic love song “Love Letter”), and Cyrus; and guest shots by, among others, Mr. Humpty Hump himself, Shock G., Black Dialogue is a synesthetic soundblast of many colors. J-Rod Indigo and the Pheremones and SubKrew open the LoBot show. 9:30 p.m., $7, 1800 Campbell St.
