By Jesse Serwer

“We’re destroying ourselves with stuff we’re trying to make,” Kool Keith says. “We have too many scientists, too many chemists…global warming.”

Keith, the veteran Bronx rapper known for free associative rhymes about sex and aliens—as well as his inordinate amount of aliases and alter egos (Dr. Octagon, Dr. Dooom, Black Elvis, Rhythm X)—isn’t exactly someone you’d expect to hear espousing environmental consciousness. But “Trees,” the first and best song on his latest LP, The Return of Dr. Octagon, does just that. At the very least, the man behind such classics as “Bitch Gets No Love” and “Spankmaster” appears to have a genuine interest in photosynthesis (“Trees are dieing…carbon dioxide coming out to you…Watch your atmosphere, pesticides).

The Return of Dr. Octagon, however, is hardly a proper follow-up to Dr. Octagonecologyst, Keith’s 1996 collaboration with pre-Gorillaz Dan The Automator. The record that OCD Records issued to the public this past June isn’t even the album Keith and producer Fanatik-J turned in.

“Those aren’t the tracks I recorded the vocals on,” Keith explains. “Fanatik-J got in a dispute with the label, and they got these three guys to do it and gave them the vocals. I think they're from Germany—I never met them. It's interesting to me: I'm hearing this record for the first time with everybody else.” 

Whatever the story is (allegedly, a deceitful country music label behind OCD duped Keith and Fanatik-J into the project), the aforementioned trio, One Watt Sun, did a decent salvage job. Though Keith’s contributions lack real linkage to the original Dr. Octagon concept—the perverted, time traveling surgeon shows up only in interludes—Return creatively juxtaposes the one-time Bellevue patient’s stream of conscious lyricism with Avalanches-like electronica. 

So, while Keith is touring in support of the project with fellow underground rap fixtures, Mr. Lif and Beans in tow, he’s been performing songs from his back catalog, not the new album. In typical Kool Keith fashion, the former Ultramagnetic MC is already on to the next. 

“I had two other projects, Mr. Nogatco [with producer Iz-Real] and Project Polaroid [with producer tom C-3], when this album came out of nowhere,” he says, describing his next collaborative effort, Futuristic Bilingual, as a “futuristic Spanish band…very fast.” 

Apparently, all the traveling and touring that Keith, who doesn’t speak Spanish, has been doing is having an affect on him. One experience in Australia was particularly eye opening.

“They got people there, caveman’ed up for real, but modern caveman. I seen this guy who looked exactly like a wolverine, but with a suit on. It was an experience in my mind. There’s other kinds of people out there.” 

September 9-10. Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie Sts.), 212-533-2111; 9, $22/$24.