Back in June, 22tape‘s brand of broken instrumental hip-hop drew attention to itself with its bracingly low-key chaos. A recent numbered track, the fifth in a series of untitled instrumentals, confirms the metric imagination of 22tape (aka Jared Dunne, whose profile page lists his physical location as “Chicago/Denver”) as something to keep an ear on.
The track, “Instrumental 5,” has the shape and hallmarks of a standard homebrew beat: looped bits of found recordings, a rough structure suggesting the verses and chorus of an inchoate song, filigrees that lend nuance …
… but unlike a lot of community-forum beats, 22tape’s work truly congeals — the track rewards on repeated listens, as small bits make themselves understood less as neat standalone objects and more as meaningful parts of the composition. An early vocal snippet comes to represent authorial intent, a sampled harp suggests a work’s florid ambition (despite the overall hardened shape of the source material). And the steady string of these untitled instrumentals makes it clear that more work is on the horizon.
For the earlier track mentioned above: disquiet.com. Original “Instrumental 5” track at soundcloud.com. More on Dunne/22tape at 22tape.blogspot.com and myspace.com/22tape.