Listener

Listener is a spoken word type monster of a project by Dan Smith and Chris Nelson. They call it "talk music" and I call it  beautifully emotional and powerful music that will rip your heart out just see if it still beats like it did when you were a small child and actually cared about things with all your might. Dan Smith (not to be confused with Dance Myth of Red Medicine) isn't out to poetically impress you with his hip mustache but convence you to just listen to the stories and imagery that he is capable of spitting out. The way the lines are delivered is like getting punched my words... or a thesaurus (take your pick).

Listener - Wooden Heart (2010)

Along with Dan's mad spoken word chops there is also the mostly overlooked work of Chris Nelson, who puts all the music together that accompanies but not necessarily backs up the spastically moving talker. The music behind Dan is just as conveying and moving as the lyrics, while not stealing the show or overloading the picture that is being thrown up on the already dirty canvases of our minds.

Dan Smith has also cut his teeth with the hip hop collective of Deepspace 5 as well as one half of the hip hop duo known as Labklik according to wikipedia.

Every line he speaks is for you the listener. So shut up and listen.

My good friend, Pat once read Seatbelt Hands at a little poem reading session and boy, did it gave me goosebumps...

I read Avril's mall punk classic, Sk8er Boi.

Last.fm
Official site
You've got beat blood in your mouth and lies in your artichoked heart