best shit 

~~~~Originally on Mishka~~~~~

***Just To Be Clear, I’m Comparing Two Pieces Of Music, Not On Their Quality, But On Their Unique Capabilities***

Producer/remixer/sound-arranger Stacy creates what he calls an “Altered State” version of Caleb Stone, Alexander Spit, Speak!, Mike G, and Cashius Green’s “Savion Glover”.  The original and it’s altered state are two entirely different tracks, in large part, due to their (imagined) sourcing.  Where the original is built from the top-down, with little coherence (in a good way), Stacy’s version is built bottom-up, fitting sounds together.  I heard the incredibly virile original a few weeks ago when it came out, and wrote about it on CUTTINGPRACTICE.COM.  

I said that it “…goes from minimally constructed from sharp wooden clogs, to hard booms and claps, to piercing ekes, to jazz, to a lo-fi rendition of the booms, to watery strums from a keyboard, and finishes with a crescendo that borrows from all of these past iterations of the beat.  Each lyricist gets their own shot at their own distinct portion of the beat.  The switches from one lyricist to the next don’t necessarily coincide with shifts in the beat; nor do the switches from one portion of the beat to the next follow a lyricist.  This unpredictability, that at any moment we could lose one of the contributors (be it a sound or a lyricist) keeps us on our toes.”

That right there is an erratically-charged piece of work.  The original moderates a host of sounds, tempos, and sonic relationships.  That’s a huge part of its strength.  Stacy’s “Altered State”, on the other hand, brings the track into a hazy thump, rarely shifting, opening up the dialogue to the lyrical contributions in a new way.  Stacy keeps the crisp wooden taps in the background, retaining an important element of the original.  He uses this as the base from which to build, and comes up with something totally different than Caleb Stone.

Where Stone found dissent, Stacy found order.  Where Stone forced his lyricists’ atmospheres, Stacy falls back.  Where Stone accosted listeners (thumbs up), Stacy floats by with them.  This ease, though, that Stacy finds, comes from his ability to build a track from one single element, and organically compose sounds around it.  To introduce the wooden-tap base, he gives us a short piano riff that fades into a spanning background alongside a vocal sample, catching the strings.  From simple wooden taps, we get bass.  We get a cymbal.  And we get deep drums.  Together, from an organic state of growth, Stacy arranges sounds towards the end of cruising a beat.

Oddly, though, this also results in a heightened awareness of the range flexxxed by the lyricists.  Although each one had their own spotlight on the original, by virtue of the variant beat(s), listeners now get to hear them as emergent from the beat, built from it.  We face two different beats that serve two different ends.  And that’s because they come from two different beginnings. In each, we can feel the process.  Stacy’s process is one that is nurtured, slowly carving out its resilience.  

***I Love Both Tracks, But For Two Different Reasons***

corpsegrindingbrutality:

Devourment - Fuck Her Head Off 

cuttingpractice:

Stacy and Caleb Stone team up for a scratchily winded beat that varies at opportune moments, not creating an instrumental chorus (on an already instrumental track), but ataraxic interjections to mold the track.  They keep listeners on their toes throughout an instrumental set in the hollows of an analog world.  ”KIL UR SELF”, is accompanied by a sharply-cutt video of party girls (ladies of the night?) getting ready to do whatever it is they’re set to do.  Robotically.  

Stacy and Stone’s first musical interjection comes in the form of a deep guitar strum that brings listeners from the simple hollows to a static world dominated by a man’s deepened and extended voice.  The video continues to move as it did, with girls coming and going at unplanned intervals, ignoring the sounds they are set to.  The second musical interruption is a fast-paced rendition of the track’s drums and shakes.  This sets the stage for speedy (and flat) booms lifted by rapid claps, elevating the tone.  Again, the girls are unfazed.

I’m a bit curious about the video, actually.  The cutts from scene to scene don’t match up with those on the track, or any of the instruments, for that matter.  Maybe this is supposed to tease us, since we wouldn’t necessarily expect any of these sounds to work together (although they do).  Why should the video match?  Maybe it’s removed from the sounds of Stacy and Stone to allow listeners to pick the art form they will follow.  It’s possible that this track is the voice of these unspoken women (and so connected on a deeper level), who are seemingly pulled away for no reason, to do a job that we can only imagine.  Maybe neither of those things.  

If someone’s creation forces us to ask small questions (how do the sounds/images fit together?) and large questions (Does anyone need to be spoken for?), it necessarily becomes art.  Stacy and Stone force sounds together that take us on a flat adventure through musical and thoughtful space.

-CUTT GODD (HERONALD REAGAN)

FORMERLY KNOWN AS : FRANKLIN WEATHERFIELD AKA DENZEL SPLASHINGTON AKA PATOIS VUITTON AKA CHUCKDEGAULLE

cuttingpractice:

Caleb Stone produces “SAVION GLOVER” for Mike G, Alexander Spit, Cashius Green, and Speak!  A West Coast quadrilateral rap connection out here on this heavily animated track.  It’s a bit misleading, to be honest, to call this just one track, or at least one single production.  Stone pushes this work through a few different filters, each one revitalizing the last.  

This goes from minimally constructed from sharp wooden clogs, to hard booms and claps, to piercing ekes, to jazz, to a lo-fi rendition of the booms, to watery strums from a keyboard, and finishes with a crescendo that borrows from all of these past iterations of the beat.  Each lyricist gets their own shot at their own distinct portion of the beat.  The switches from one lyricist to the next don’t necessarily coincide with shifts in the beat; nor do the switches from one portion of the beat to the next follow a lyricist, either.  This unpredictability, that at any moment we could lose one of the contributors (be it a sound or a lyricist) keeps us on our toes.  

It’s hard to excite our generation of music consumers.  We’re tired of the same riffs, drops, and references.  This track grabs on our excitement, and serves us an unplaceable work of art that constantly refreshes itself.  By harnessing an important aspect of unpredictability, we hang on each thread of this track as if it were its (and our) last.

LISTEN : 

-CUTT GODD (HERONALD REAGAN)

FORMERLY KNOWN AS : FRANKLIN WEATHERFIELD AKA DENZEL SPLASHINGTON AKA PATOIS VUITTON AKA CHUCKDEGAULLE