Winding Rhymes

He plays dodgeball with the beat, rhyming in front of it, behind it, on top of it, his words fanning out in all different directions, like marbles skittering across an icy surface.

He nearly hyperventilates on the mic, his voice urgent and breathless, cocksure and composed, a series of contrasts from bar to bar.

On his latest mixtape, "Nuclear Winter Vol. 1," stalwart MC Sole (Tim Holland), a fixture of the indie hip-hop underground for a decade and a half now, sounds like a street preacher warning of the apocalypse on one track, a wily scene veteran confident of his lofty perch in the progressive-rap pecking order on the next.

He turns sacred cows into T-bone steaks, name checking Timothy Geithner and the works of Ayn Rand before the disc's intro is over and critiquing the current administration in particularly bayonet-sharp terms.

"This year was a bad year, I knew it would be that," Holland booms on "My President." "They gave us some nice speeches, but I can't eat that."

Elsewhere, he jacks the beat to Rick Ross' hit "Every Day I'm Hustlin'" and issues a mission statement of sorts.

"My music's not for all, or it's all for naught," he announces. "I don't need a heater, I make the listener pick up a Noam Chomsky reader."

It's a raw, off-the-cuff record from a dude known for dense, winding rhymes that flow like raging rivers with dozens of tributaries.

The disc's directly reflective of the hand-to-mouth existence of a DIY artist such as Holland, who still has to fight to make ends meet despite a slew of acclaimed, forward-thinking records, such as 2000's "Bottle of Humans" and 2003's "Selling Live Water."

"I'm at the point where I was working this summer, doing little odd jobs here and there, and I'm just like, 'I've worked too hard in my life to have to work a 9 to 5,' " Holland says. "Any time I feel like crap about my life, I think, 'Oh, I should go back to college. I should go get certified for Mac servers.' You know what? Screw that. I should be touring Japan."

It's hard to argue that Holland hasn't earned that kind of status.

As the co-founder of the influential, Bay Area-based indie label Anticon Records, Holland played a key role in helping spread alternative-minded hip-hop that pushed the genre in invigorating new directions beginning in the late '90s.

But recently, he split from Anticon to go at it on his own again, a familiar path for a guy who began making his own records at age 11 with homemade tape dubs that he'd then rap over through a friend's karaoke machine.

These days, he splits his time between working on his solo projects and collaborating with The Skyrider Band, with whom he will be performing at the latest installment of the Neon Reverb music festival here this weekend.

It's a different context for Holland, rhyming amidst live instrumentation.

It seems to be a slightly more reflective outlet for a man who does a lot of reflecting.

"I have my arsenal of what I'm thinking about, what I'm reading and what I'm doing, and I just kind of leave myself open," Holland says of his creative process. "I go to parties and talk to smart people and see what they're talking about. It's become a challenge to just try and listen more instead of just talking all the time.

"A lot of people have good things that can lead you in a completely different direction," he continues. "So, usually, if I'm thinking about an idea, I'll just keep talking about it everywhere I go and see what people add to it. And then I'll come home, I'll have a few little lines that I've written in my wallet, and I'll just play the beat and pace around, yelling. I pretty much write all my stuff standing, pacing back and forth in front of a really loud speaker."

Despite being an artist outside the traditional music industry infrastructure, Holland continues to excavate his own distinct niche.

He's an upbeat sounding guy, happily married, currently living in Denver.

His life is a lot like his rhymes: all over the place.

"Certain things get easier, certain things get more difficult," Holland says of his topsy-turvy career arc. "It's just a matter of constantly adapting."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.