Real Men pairs John S. Hall’s witty, surreal, and extremely deadpan monologues with Kramer’s collage-style production accompaniment. The combination works well, as it essentially features each man doing what he does best. Hall’s fumbling and almost bored-sounding speeches sometimes bring to mind a nervous school kid reading a report in front of his class, while his free-associative poems range from pointed (“My Personal Life”) to absurd (“Everybody Screams Inside”). He has some truly choice lines, and several tracks, including “How Much Longer” and “The Birds,” are laugh-out-loud funny. Kramer’s backings, meanwhile, are a psychedelic, homespun mélange of samples (from artists ranging from N.W.A. to Ravi Shankar) and everyday sounds such as jackhammers, gushing water, and car horns. He does an excellent job highlighting Hall’s words with the various strategically placed sounds he uses, and the stereo effects are pretty impressive, too. As with a majority of spoken word recordings, Real Men isn’t something one is likely to put on every day, but it is entertaining (if perhaps a shade too long) and worth seeking out for fans of either artist. – William York
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