It's a little tough to pinpoint all these years later, but I honestly think my first exposure to Hip-Hop was House of Pain's "Jump Around" playing in one of the opening "party scenes" in Robin Williams' 1993 blockbuster hit, Mrs. Doubtfire, which would have made me about six. Although, a number of years later, my older cousin Josh gifted me a stack of CD's and a shoe box-full of cassettes containing Beastie Boys Anthology: The Sounds of Science (1999) 2-CD set, as well as the Beasties' 1986 debut, Licensed to Ill and its follow-up, Paul's Boutique (1989.) Around the same time, I was just starting to get into Punk/Hardcore and cut my teeth listening to Henry Rollins-era Black Flag, Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Misfits, Samhain, and a slew of additional staple 1980-90's Punk albums—soon, discovering two Punk-minded Beastie Boys releases: Some Old Bullsh*t and Aglio e Olio EP.

Ever since, I've been searching for an album able to harness and successfully meld together my favorite elements of both Hip-Hop and Punk/Hardcore music - a few 'Honorable Mentions' being: Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog Flavored Water, Death Grips' Exmiltary/The Money Store/NO LOVE DEEP WEB, Fall Out Boy's Make American Psycho Again Hip-Hop remix album, Doomtree founder Cecil Otter & Swiss Andy's Wu-Tang Clan/Fugazi mash-up album 13 Chambers (credited to "WUGAZI,") Old City's recent DOOM/Doom-melding Black Bastards EP, and of course, my personal favorite, Mos Def & Black Jack Johnson's Blues Rock-drenched masterpiece, The New Danger. Now, all of that's just a rather long-winded way to bring you up to speed for this...


MANIKINETER—oftentimes, stylized as "MANIK|NETER"—is the latest musical project of rapper, producer, visual artist, and noise-maker Carl Kavorkian. Over the course of his storied career, Kavorkian has self-released a whopping 21 albums, EP's, mixtapes, and assorted projects on his own Cult Member Music imprint and was featured on "Dope Skill" from DOOM's (VV:2) Venomous Villain released as Viktor Vaughn and contributed production work to Nogatco Rd. (2006) Kool Keith's first album under his Mr. Nogatco alter-ego. Carl Kavorkian has additionally worked alongside and recorded music with artists including Black Tokyo, Emissaries of Syn, ialive & Imbue, Masai Bey, Rummage (Dead Hand,) and Uncommon Nasa. Although, I was personally first exposed to Kavorkian's music upon the release of his first MANIKINETER release, 2017's Mannequin Eater EP, it appears as though he's been experimenting with Noise-Rap and genre-eschewing stylings long before Death Grips and their contemporaries.

For his MANIKINETER live show, which I attended once, but unfortunately, missed his opening set, Carl frequently dons an executioner's mask and essentially, re-creates his sludgy compositions from the ground up. Carl Kavorkian is gearing up to let loose his THIRD release as MANIKINETER in just TWO years, Not As They Do (EP3) this upcoming Friday, April 13th. Its lead-off single, "Do As They Say," was premiered on Ghettoblaster Magazine this past Thursday, which provides an interesting dichotomy between "Do As They Say"/Not As They Do. Speaking on his self-directed "Do As They Say" video, Kavorkian says, "with visuals straight out of a dream sequence from a time before televisions screens glowed of color, the lyrics speak on the dream sequence the world deals with live, in living color." MANIKINETER's third EP, Not As They Do is currently available for pre-order on Bandcamp in both cassette and digital album formats.