“Thread Count” brings the gruff tuba slap of Guilty Simpson, who works in tandem with the beat, his voice another rich instrument in a dazzling composition.Īcross the entire album, the beats breathe and sparkle, carried by their own swirling iridescent tsunami swing. Behind the boards, Elaquent is masterful, offering rugged drums and gorgeous spliff-lit jazz pianos - a new alchemy of smoked out soul. There is the angelic levitation of the Chester Watson-buoyed “Airwalk.” The young monotone samurai ponders the wrath of karma, Topanga Canyon versus Beverly Hills, and the eternal question of whether time is moving too fast, or if it’s merely our perception. ![]() It mixes Low End Theory with the residual influence of the legendary Los Angeles beat scene mecca of the same name. He offers a confessional message of clear-headed meditative simplicity while the beat stutters with ingenious syncopated rhythms, percussion clicks, and honey blue keys reminiscent of vintage Tribe Called Quest but updated for the 21st Century. The lick curls like smoke rings before dissolving into the wine-dark night - only to give way to Oddisee offering his “Guidelines.” The PG County legend deploys a liquid flow, his voice melodically climbing the scales like Spiderman to a skyscraper. A saxophone loop plays like you’d heard it in a Parisan jazz club in 1950, right around the time a young Miles Davis was seducing Juliette Greco. “Forever Intro” conjures familiar but distant chords of memory. But this time, I really wanted to challenge myself to do something a little different and showcase what I can do with a number of my favorite artists.”įrom the onset, a mesmeric spell is cast. “Most of my instrumental albums would feature only one or two collaborations, and only then for a change of pace. “I’ve always wanted to do this type of record, but it never felt right to do until now,” Elaquent explains. It’s an album possessed with smoke-wreathed jazz cool and urgent immediacy - as though as soon as the artists heard the instrumentals, they immediately set pad to pen. After all, art is closer to voodoo than science, and here, the rappers sound legitimately inspired by the productions. The curation is impeccable, but more than that, it creates its own orphic sense of magic. It’s the hip-hop equivalent of that old question: who would you want to invite to your dream dinner party if you had the chance? But instead, it’s the lab, and the visitors include a murderer’s row of underground MCs including Oddisee, Blu, Chester Watson, Cavalier, and Guilty Simpson. ![]() In that timeless lineage, you can add another one with Elaquent’s, Forever is a Pretty Long Time.Īs with all brilliant producer compilation albums, the Guelph, Ontario-based Elaquent vividly constructs his own world. Or in more recent years, the gems reaped from the Mello Music Cinematic Universe: Apollo Brown’s The Reset, Oddisee 101, and L’Orange’s The Ordinary Man. 1, Pete Rock’s Soul Survivor, Hi-Tek’s Hi-Teknology, J Dilla’s Welcome to Detroit, and The Neptunes’ Clones. We rightfully revere the classics: Marley Marl’s In Control Vol. The compilation album is a rite of passage for elite hip-hop producers.
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