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Based in Tokyo, the musician known as Ichiro_ creates artfully loping instrumental hip-hop haunted by the vocals it so demonstratively lacks. On a superb recent downtempo track (with the ungainly title “Repeatpattern plus ichiro fairport reply draft one”), he uses a muddled voice as a melodic and percussive component, the loose vowels heavily mediated by [...]
More great super old-school instrumental hip-hop from the dustedwax.org netlabel — or as the liner notes to the set in question, the 85 Decibel Monks EP Reel to Real, call it: “phat minimalistic.” These are straightforward, layered tracks of beats, effects, and samples, none of them any more dense than the average classic Run-DMC single, [...]
Upright bass? Check. Taut, mechy beat? Check. Loungey echo? Check. Washboard chucka-chucka? Check. Light keys? Check. Sudden break? Check. Entirely refreshing? Check. The opening track from David Rinman‘s Beyond the Billows of Boom continues the Dusted Wax label’s string of jazz-meets-electronica releases in fine form. Titled “Based On Instrumental” (MP3), the piece mixes up brief [...]
The mix of found noises and hip-hop-derived beats that comprise “Saloon Shwagger” render the track, by 22tape (aka Jared Dunne), absolutely irresistible. It’s from his MosaicChangeTone EP, available for free download. “Shwagger” is all looping horns and these splayed beats that break apart in time for sauntering piano, brief call-outs, and stereoscopic droning. On Soundcloud.com, [...]
Two of the 10 most popular posts on this site during the month of may relate to Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album (cover shown at left), the recent free album download I compiled. Each track on the album is a response-in-music to a misinformed article (“The Freeloaders”) about copyright and creativity in the May [...]
There may be no label, web-based or otherwise, that steadily publishes as heady a mix of hip-hop and electronica as does Dusted Wax Kingdom (at dustedwax.org). In the Kingdom of Wax, hip-hop is a producer’s realm, a place where texture fills the void left by vocals. Just check out Green Butter by Transient, in particular [...]
In August, it’ll be seven years since I left New Orleans; it’ll also mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and the governmental incompetence exposed in its wake. Was reminiscing about the city tonight, when I caught the premiere episode of Treme, the new HBO series from the creators of The Wire. Learning that it [...]