Gangster Trippin’

A Melbourne rapper who rips at the heart of the city with relentless angst and brutality, Tornts is someone who enjoys to dabble with danger. Since signing to Broken Tooth Entertainment in 2002, his previous records - ‘Adding Insult To Injury’ (2003), ‘Decimation Recordings’ (2006) and ‘Hells Burn’ (2008) - have set up a steady platform for which Tornts can unleash his trademark fury.

And with his new offering, ‘The Deadbrain Diaries’, his violent, motor mouth continues unabated. It’s a tough, bleak, uncompromising record even by Tornts’ standards, bolstered by the collaborative efforts of a team of Melbourne hip hoppers who all lend their distinctive mark to tracks like ‘Merciless’, which features long time collaborator Brad Strut, and Kid Selzy who crops up on ‘Strife On My Mind’, not to mention input throughout from Bigfoot, Diem and Billy Bunks, who all form part of Tornts’ infamous Hired Goons crew.

Yet the biggest step that Tornts has undertaken is to work with other producers for the first time. Beat Butcher, Ciph Barker, Chemo and Ciecmate all appear, laying down some heavy beats and doing for Tornts what they have done in the past for Killah Priest, Sean Price and Hell Razah, as well as many other prolific artists.

Tornts tells me that it was refreshing to step away from the production for a change: “[It] left me able to think and concentrate even more on writing tracks, that’s also why I finished the album a lot quicker than my others,” he says. “I set out to make a killer world class album that represented my city to the fullest and would get respect wherever it was played, whether it was in Melbourne, London, New York or any other spot on this tainted globe.”

So, the record has given Tornts a broader palette to build upon, and the extent of the damage is clear from the outset, given the relentless nature of the album’s 18 angry tracks. There is no question that this is a side of Melbourne which Tornts is living and breathing.

“I write street music about things going on around me from a Melbourne sicko’s vision,” he says. “A lot of people don’t realise what’s going on in their city. I like to be a twisted journalist and also get my thoughts down on the page and out of my wretched brain.”

As social commentator (although I do prefer the term ‘twisted journalist’), his rhymes are no more potent than on the track ‘No One’, where he’s “watching gamblers lose their houses on the pokes”; or the cold reality of ‘Wastelands Avenue’, where Tornts spits about a city “out of order”. It’s here where Tornts confronts the wannabe Australian gangsters who proclaim allegiances to false ideals. “You rap about glory and guns when you are not Sicilians,” he says by way of a diss, and possibly forming the only real joke on the album.

‘Hit Never Miss’ is the single, one that swings a violent hook, and best demonstrates Tornts as the confrontational rapper that he is already well established for. While ‘Wish I Was Dead’ is a visceral if brief suicide note, painful in its descriptions of hoodies that suffocate. ‘Reapers My Chauffeur’ is another particularly morbid vision: “we’re living in apocalyptic ages,” he says, “with no saviours.” Part protest, part call to arms, those who particularly savoured Tornts’ ‘Hells Burn’ record, and its screaming images of unbridled fury, will clearly not be disappointed by this new epic effort. “I called it ‘The Deadbrain Diaries’ because … I write a lot so I’ve always got pages piled up, they're like twisted diaries about different themes or what I've seen or been through,” he says.

But as one of Melbourne’s hardest hitters, Tornts is keenly followed but rarely seen, preferring to vocalise his disdain for the city from the underground. It may not be romantic but it’s certainly respectable: after all, how can you speak the brutal truth of the streets without living amongst it? As a result, his live shows are sporadic, and at the time of going to press, there is no news as to whether he plans to tour the new record.

But given its success already, the album is already proving to be a testament to the thriving Melbourne hip hop scene of which Tornts is proud to be a leading member.

“The Melbourne hip hop scene is smashing it at the moment,” he tells me. “Our city is bringing the goods. There’s been a big resurgence of proper hardcore street rap. “It’s dope that production has got a lot better too. People like Illuminate and Wik Beats are bringing the heat: proper 2010 production, not just bullshit throwback beats. There’s always some crap floating around too but that goes for any music scene, really.”

‘The Deadbrain Diaries’ is out now.