So what you’re going to do right now – and I mean right the fuck now, I’ll wait – is open up a new tab, point your browser at http://timfite.com, and download Under the Table Tennis. You’re going to do this for two reasons. The first is that (like most of his music) Fite gives it away for free. The other reason – and by far the more important one – is that it’s one of the best records you’ll hear this year. Seriously. I am not fucking with you. Go download it.
That being said, let’s actually talk about Tim Fite. He’s originally from Pennsylvania, somewhere out west, but has been calling Brooklyn his base of operations the last several years. A lot of his material resembles folkie/acoustic stuff, just more acidic. Not so with Table Tennis and its sister album Over the Counter Culture; these are dense slabs of avant folk-hop, intense rapping diatribes over varied instrumentation and found samples (Fite claims to have sampled no record that was not found in a bargain bin for $1 or less). There is an urge to compare Fite to Beck. It is an absolutely unfair comparison; the two are operating on completely different levels. Beck is an auteur, spinning together art jams that build on unexpected interpretations of pop and country tropes. What Tim Fite does is grab a whiffle ball bat and procede to beat you furiously about the head and shoulders while screaming at you in Yiddish. It’s an assault of aggression and absurdity that dares you to comprehend it, simultaneously launching its gut-churning vitriol into a new level of artistry. He’s like Bob Dylan on PCP; reaching out from the depths of the human experience to touch and change you, but more by slapping you than through enlightenment.
The chosen experience on Table Tennis is the recession. Fite is concerned about having no money, no job, no future, and no ability to care. He tackles the uninsured (“Not Covred”), the underemployed (“Jobs”), consumer dissatisfaction (“Money Back”), and uses it all to capture the limitless despair of the individual facing ruin under the umbrella of bank bailouts. His lyrics are bitter and acidic, but never lose sight of the men and women he’s trying to lend voices. Fite is at his best when he’s mixing despair with joy; for example, “No Notice” has its character quitting his soul-crushing job, but facing unemployment as freedom from the corporate cubicle death.
Musically, Fite blends a lot of influences. The base building block is a grumpy acoustic guitar, but Fite layers interesting samples and effective, if generally straight-forward, drum programming around it. The variaton is more than sufficient; on top of rhythmic shifts in the lyrics (this *is* rap-based, after all) Fite flexes from sturm-and-drang to neo-funk, all of it wrapping correctly around the lyrical message.
Final Grade: A. That’s right, an A. This record is a revalation. Go download it now. And suport Tim Fite.
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