What Sticks, the debut release from beat producer Borka, is a refreshingly innovative exploration of beats and instrumental hip-hop. Intricately blending samples and grooves from entirely different genres, it goes to highlight a heightened musical appreciation clearly held by the Slovenian producer. Marking itself as a very much European sounding release, mostly due to its utilisation of foreign sampled vocals and ethnic instrumentation, it furthers the standard definition of a ‘beat tape’ whilst still maintaining its organic hip-hop aesthetic.
Every single track induces an uncontrollable head-nod, none moreso than ‘Ice Nine’, a smooth and soulful beat deserving of the ‘cloud rap’ sub-genre. Soft string samples, raw percussion grooves and jagged synthetic blips combine to produce a near perfect song.
‘Miss You Like My Hi Hat’s delves much more into the future-beat side of things, staying wonky and synthetic from start to finish; while ‘Jimmy Sings’ creates a bridge between the more organic and synthetic sides of What Sticks, once again using strings to form the main progression, with a hard beat and operatic vocals filling in the gaps.
Rounding out the original tracks on the EP, ‘Last Batch of Brownies’ is definitely the stand out song. Easing in with a panning ambient pulse that lasts the length of the song, a hard and tinny beat works with the mounting layers of noise and grinding bass to form a never-dull four minute beat that excellently rounds out a fantastic debut EP.
Joshua Millar
