EXPANDED BOXSET REISSUE OF DAN THE AUTOMATOR, KOOL KEITH, AND DJ QBERT’S GROUND BREAKING 1996 COLLABORATION.Dan The Automator’s and Kool Keith’s famed collaboration from the mid-‘90s is celebrated with a 28-track set housed in a custom, octagonal box, with 5 unreleased songs (originals + remixes); original Pushead cover artwork; and 40 page liner notes booklet.

“[Dr. Octagonecologyst is] Bordering on something both epic and, to be quite honest, frighteningly fantastic… Destined to become a classic, and not fully appreciated until the next millennium.”
– Rap Pages, 1996

“It was sci-fi, science and sex. And cannibalism, mixed. Space, sex and ‘Psycho,’ all at the same time.”
– Kool Keith

By the mid-1990s, the rap game had been through a lot in its two decades of existence: Early-days scraping to get by and be heard; The advent of sampling; The rise of groups ranging from Run-DMC to the Wu-Tang Clan and the sprawl of Dr. Dre’s shadow from the West across the globe; and solo juggernauts ranging from MC Hammer to the Notorious B.I.G.

Thankfully, though, with everything that the genre had been through, there was still a lot of room to grow. And in early 1996, a new indie duo appeared that won over a whole new international audience, from hard rocks to skate punks. That pair was Dr. Octagon: Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and Kool Keith [Thornton].

In some ways, the Dr. Octagon album is a solo release. But Keith wasn’t the only hand on deck. He brought along a young, New York-based MC with him: Sir Menelik. Menelik was featured on four album tracks, starting with “Dr. Octagon,” and proved to be an excellent super-scientifical, fast-rhyming foil to Keith. And there was one final featured contributor who helped add to the album’s next-level sound: San Francisco’s DJ Q*Bert, who cuts on half of the album’s songs.

The album originally came out on The Automator’s Bulk Recordings label in early 1996, with cover art by metal and punk cult hero visual artist Pushead. Pressing numbers weren’t huge, but as the year went on, the buzz grew, and a slightly expanded version of the album was released on James Lavelle’s London-based Mo Wax label. Then Dan took an offer from newly-formed major label DreamWorks, to re-release the album with extra tracks in mid-1997. The new domestic pressing allowed for a bigger press push, as well as the group’s first and only video, for “Blue Flowers.”

Beyond “Blue Flowers,” the album is chock-full of mind-bending tracks, like “Earth People”; the wacked-out but sincere love ballad “Girl Let Me Touch You”; the metal-tinged “I’m Destructive”; Q-Bert’s turntable workout “Bear Witness”; and, of course, freaky Keith skits like “Elective Surgery” and “General Hospital”.

For this special, ultra deluxe edition, released 20 years after the DreamWorks edition, it is presented on 3-LPs, with one full side consisting of never-before heard songs. Two new remixes (“Wild And Crazy” and “I’m Destructive,” both done by Dan The Automator in 2016), as well as three songs recorded during the original Octagon sessions but never released on any other editions of the album: “Astro Embalming Fluid”; “Redeye”; “I’ll Be There For You.”

All in all, there are 28 tracks of Octagon madness here – an embarrassment of bonus riches, considering that the original Bulk 2-LP had only 19.

The outer package of the set is housed in a custom-made octagonal box, with original front (Pushead) and back cover artwork. Inside, besides the 3-LPs, each housed in their own custom, octagon-shaped sleeve, there is a 40-page liner notes book, with dozens of images – from album artwork to promotional ads – as well as interviews with both Keith and Dan The Automator by author Brian Coleman.

Dr. Octagonecologyst is one of the most unique rap records the genre has ever seen, and this is the perfect way to celebrate it – whether it’s the first time you have heard this mind-expanding record, or the three thousandth.