Released June 2008, this might be old news to some readers; it’s a beat tape, with the RZA’s influence all over it. There’s not many soul samples though, and the beats lope and stagger to the point where they might fall over; it’s so crunchy and static ridden it almost sounds like he’s used flash compression. There’s equal amounts creepy, layered interludes – to woozy, stilted beats. Interestingly, I couldn’t find much online other than the download link and a couple of forum posts, though this person is a candidate.
It’s worth noting here, and this applies to much sample based music now, that homage is no longer exclusively extended to source material – or in other words, the sounds being sampled. This is not so much about worshipping rare breaks, as it is about referencing production tropes; particular styles of cutting, various ways of achieving swing, idiosyncratic edits, compression settings, mix structures, degradation. An earlier generation of producers is being canonised, and commented on by music like this – accordingly, this could be construed as a RZA tribute, in that some of what makes his productions distinctive is isolated, and celebrated. Lots of listeners won’t be interested in the language of production being spoken here, but the point is that what could be construed as merely stylistic artifice, or manipulation of surface, is in fact the mark of individuality.
My only criticism is to point out the incongruence of Kung Fu samples packaged with a Japanese fetish, when Kung Fu is very much Chinese… but then, deriding this for its lack of historical fidelity is kind of silly.
Download here.
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