Special Herbs Vols 9&0

Metal Fingers is DOOM’s producer alias, one more mask in a career built on them. Daniel Dumile rapped as MF DOOM, Viktor Vaughn and King Geedorah, and made beats as Metal Fingers. The Special Herbs series, ten volumes released through the early 2000s, is the beat side of that split. Each track is named after a plant, root or spice, and many were recycled into vocal records. Here they’re presented on their own, without the villain on top.

Vols 9&0 (2020 reissue on Nature Sounds) completes the series. The sound is the one DOOM built on Operation: Doomsday: a loop lifted from an obscure soul or lounge record, drums that sit slightly off the grid, and an unhurried sense that the sample is good enough to be left alone. With the rapping removed, the method is easier to hear. DOOM the producer was as much a curator as a composer, and the series reads like a record collection with the best bits circled.