Overdriven, glowering breaks pile up on each other in slow motion. Musique concrete flourishes illuminate the dark corners of your psyche and the nation. Welcome to the world of 3:33, where the tensions and stress of daily living pile up to be made manifest in beats and textures heavy enough to walk on water with. Harking back to the mid-to-late 90s, the 333EP-1 is chock full of dense, multilayered instrumental hip hop that manages to maintain the listeners focus completely over its economical length. Where many producers could let the weed smoke and head nodding transformational tendencies of a low-swung breakbeat blow out the length of a release, the shadowy crew behind 3:33 use precision ninja techniques to keep the listener captivated and intense. You’ll be left blinking, as you emerge into the sunlight, like a discombobulated viewer after a David Lynch flick “What WAS that all about?”
Glowering, uneasy textures rub up against a certain Wu Tang-esque martial arts vibe. Like a meeting of the Position Chrome label’s breakbeat destruction with the GZA, 3:33 hark back to the late 90s, finding parallel thoughts with Kevin Martin’s Ice project and early The Bug releases, Techno Animal, Panacea, Spectre and various Illbient cats. The overdriven, distorted drum beats and ghostly piano on “333EP1” could be straight out of the Ghost Dog soundtrack. “333N4” has one of those classic jungle breakbeats slowed down to walking pace. I spent most of the 90s slowly loosing my hearing to such audio gold, but for the life of me, I cannot recall the name of this goddam break! This unidentified break is left to bubble along relatively unmolested; its the spooky strings and soundtrack-style effects that ratchet up the tension. If your tastes are more blunted and sullen, head straight for the space/stone(d) age belligerence of “333EP3.” Ride cymbals hang, kicks drums punish, and short loops pummel you into submission. Submit to the inevitable, surrender to 3:33.
Oliver Laing
