Requiem - Oddisee & Phonte (Persona - Mello Music Group compilation 2015)

Requiem is the lead track off the phenomenal label compilation from Mello Music Group entitled Persona.  Were this a lesser label full of lesser artists undoubtedly this release would quickly become part of the background noise and dust bunnies accumulating in the expanding/collapsing musical universe.  Mello Music Group is a constant.  Quality, Consciousness and Intelligence are their mandate.  Admittedly this shouldn't be so revolutionary in Hip Hop (admittedly Common fucked the 'genre' for micro-ages).

It's safe to say that Oddissee, who has made a name for himself on a handful of his own releases, production moves, but mostly as the braintrust behind the groundbreaking (second) Diamond District release March On Washington (along with yU and XO) is the bald wizard behind the curtain.

Requiem is an interesting opener though. Oddissee, deeply akin to producer Phonte (of the influential mid-west group Little Brother)  who is known for his phenomenal ear for soul and unique sample flips echoes the Detroit sound as championed by J Dilla, Black Milk and younger producers like Denmark Vessey.  Every hip hop reviewer hears something Dilla in the Requiem cut but its likely owing to laziness or vague ancestral sample memories (more likely lazy cellphone search engine research).  Admittedly a track was released in 2012 on Rebirth of Detroit credited to J Dilla and Allan Barnes entitled Requiem.  More recognizably Dilla, born James Yancey, samples Requiem on one of his more popular Unreleased Instrumentals Trashy.  But Trashy bares little resemblance to Requiem except perhaps in spirit.  As to who Oddissee is sampling in the opening bars and throughout that remains a minor mystery for a hot minute.  You know it though. Or you think you do.

For what it's worth later at the midpoint of the release Oddissee delivers Word To The Wise which samples indelibly - if you like - the original sample of (You) Got What I Need  by Freddie Scott as recalled through Biz Markie's Just A Friend. Slick.

Detroit vs. Everybody Remix (16 Minutes feat. Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Trick Trick,Marv Won prod. Statik Selektah)

The original version of Detroit Vs. Everybody was on an Eminem compilation of no particular distinction (Shady XM).  The original featured Shady, Dej Loaf, Royce da 5'9", Big Sean and the more-played-out-by-the-moment Danny Brown (and it hurts us to say that- we loved Danny Brown!).  And rarely use exclamation points for emphasis.

The Remix which clocks in at a whopping and not entirely enthralling sixteen minutes.  Dej Loaf appears on this one too along with Trick Trick, two thirds of Random Axe (Guilty Simpson and Black Milk), Detroit Che, Boldy James, Sino, Payroll, Hydro, Big Gov, Kid Vishis, Big Herk, Calicoe, Diezel, Icewear Vezzo,Big Herk and Marv Won.   All the rappers are Detroit natives or connected with the D - a handful (Diezel, Marv Won, Guilty) having previously appeared together on Trick Trick's second gangster album The Villain.

Northern Heads celebrates 60,000 visitors

Northern Heads began as northernheads.com (a very lo-fi website, essentially a proto-blog covering largely Canadian improvisational 'jam' based music) from 2001-2005.   The website was founded by Canadian Luke Bowden and American Abe Robins and might best be described as jambands.com meets The Onion on ketamine.  

After some dark and hairy times Northern Heads was revived by Luke Bowden as a blog at first primarily focused on Detroit Hip Hop.  The notion behind this limited focus at the outset was that there are countless general interest blogs and music blogs out there and the world of music is so vast that once one starts down a path (say Blues from the 1920's) you could literally spend a lifetime trying to understand that little niche.  From an initial focus on the preternatural J Dilla, his protege Black Milk and many in his camp including Elzhi, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price and (Hybrid-era) Danny Brown the scope of coverage has grown.

Gradually the focus of the blog dilated to include its namesake the Grateful Dead, Phish and the immortal Prince - but more importantly progressive improvisational groups such as The Slip (now The Barr Brothers) as well as a variety of Electronic musicians influenced by a deep musicality (The Gaslamp Killer, Flying Lotus etc.).   Swinging to the other end of the spectrum my other area of specialization is Roots and Americana music with a fervent interest in Canadian groups with spine and spirit such as The Golden Dogs and their kin Zeus. 

As a freelance music writer I have always operated on the margins of Canada's nepotistic and clingy world of music journalism.  As a rule I do not feature any music which I am not deeply passionate about- setting a standard of requisite craftsmanship rarely present in the glut of releases pumped out on a daily basis.  Put plainly I listen to all the shit so that you don't have to.

As the New Year approaches we'll be highlighting the best of 2014's releases as well as highlighting long form interviews from the past year originally published on No Depression (the Roots music authority since 1995).  Thanks for reading and coming back - if you don't currently follow the blog please consider following it in the future.  I promise to bring you more music, more diverse music and insights, and more frequent updates over the coming year.

sincerely,

Luke C. Bowden

Black Milk - Boiler Room DJ Set 08.20.14

An Evening With... Black Milk is an exhilirating live run through of Cross' more synth-based material present of late including the quick follow-up to the No Poison No Paradise LP (2013) - this year's Glitches In The Break EP (influenced and informed by guests such as Robert Glasper). The set includes his hotcake new joint Detroit's New Dance Show.  Also showcased is unreleased material such as cuts from Melanie Rutherford's mysterious Searching For Sanity album.  Who knows what Milk's source material is most of the time.  He is such a prodigious crate digger and one of a few living legends on the MPC that his source material is often times wholly indistinguishable.  Busta Rhymes and Danny Brown's distinctive patter may be more easy to recognize.

Black Milk - Detroit's New Dance Show, What It's Worth, Gold Piece (Latest Tracks)

Black Milk w. Bun B - Gold Piece

We need not mention here at Northern Heads that Black Milk (born Curtis Cross) - the foremost of many proteges of the immortal J Dilla- is one of the most important artists in Hip Hop today.  Where much of contemporary hip hop has become a laughingstock, and admittedly Milk has had a number of career missteps, still there is hope.  His last full length No Poison No Paradise (2013) followed shortly thereafter by Glitches In The Break (2014) restored faith in his deep production talent.  Cross sees himself as a producer/ rapper and his work suffered in recent years due to his focus on his lyricism.  Poison represented a through point where Milk again brought his production into the forefront while stepping up his lyrical game.  Glitches focused more basically on his production strengths.   Cross constantly baits his core audience - ourselves included- with a 'vault' of material he's constantly producing and moving beyond.

This new collaboration with self-determining Hip Hop legend Bun B only further raises the stakes on what listeners should anticipate from this determined artist.

Church Remix - Slum Village, Skyzoo, Focus prod Young RJ

With two of three founding members of Slum Village passed (Baatin and Dilla) and Elzhi no longer fleshing out the new lineup these days Slum Village= T3.  And frankly T3 is a goof.  This is not simply a personal opinion, beyond his vaguely passable flow there is a sense in various interviews that T3's lazy style was a source of frustration to the more serious members of the group particularly Dilla. 

Here the highlight is the production of the consistently deft and melodic producer Young RJ (at one time half of BR Gunna with Black Milk) and Focus' verse deserves a nod too.

Karriem Riggins - Alone Together

When you speak of J Dilla's protege, Black Milk is usually the character that comes to mind.  But certainly the accolade would be just as well suited to jazz drummer and hip hop producer Karriem Riggins.  Riggins, who moved to New York at the age of 19 from his native Detroit, joined the Ray Brown Trio in 1998. He has recorded and performed with Donald Byrd, Hank Jones, Mulgrew Miller, Milt Jackson, Oscar Peterson, Cedar Walton, Roy Hargrove, and Bobby Hutcherson and Paul McCartney.

The dulcid tones of his touring life as a member of Diana Krall's quartet contrast obliquely with his production work for hip hop artists including Slum Village, Erykah Badu, Common, J Dilla, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Phat Kat, Consequence, and Dwele.

Most famously Riggins completed production on J Dilla's post-mortem release The Shining which was 75% complete at the time of his death.  Hip Hop lore attributes to Riggins having found the Bobby Caldwell sample Open Your Eyes that became one of Dilla's most anthemic productions The Light from Common's Water For Chocolate.

Karriem Riggins released his first solo album Alone Together on Stone's Throw in 2012. The title is taken from a jazz standard by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz that begin with the words, “Alone together, above the crowd.” 

The songs or productions which range from 14 seconds to a little over three minutes bear a vein of similarity in both their audaciousness and alacrity to those of James Yancey's.  On J Dilla The Greatest his tools are fittingly a sparse Gretsch drum kit, a Rhodes synthesizer and an MPC 3000.  The New York Times described the release well as:

 

a collection of intuitive sketches made in his Detroit home studio, an unvarnished take on the sounds in his head. It’s ’70s-obsessed crate digger’s music, with tiny unnamed looping samples — he credits his digital gear, but not the song sources — from all kinds of soul and pop and Brazilian records, and other recorded sound. Beneath all that lie Mr. Riggins’s own synthesizer melodies and his programmed or live drum-set beats, slow and deep with delayed groove.
 

 



Black Milk - Demo Beats 2012

Black Milk, a producer/rapper as well as drummer/percussionist, who appears on the cover of his landmark album Popular Demand with an MPC tucked under his arm, plays the 'instrument' live and in the studio better than most any human being (Pete Rock's up there too).  Which is part of what makes Demo Beats 2012- a recently dropped teaser of his current output so fascinating.  This future-forward material veers out into some new bracing territory (sounding at times unabashedly similar to even Dilla's Donuts with it's style of constant revolutions of sound) that suggests a much broader sonic palette and production environment.  Where his last full length release Album Of The Year was definitive for how he captured the live sounds of instrumentalists Daru Jones (drums), AB (keys) and bassist Tim Shellabarger (not as much for his personal lyrics of the crushing year he had marked by loss) here we see a man tossing off, literally, a series of tossed off beats (one of 400 produced in the last year he'd rather hold onto for now) that echoes at points his deep crates neo-soul lineage while pointing to something else entirely.

Black Milk - Demo Beats 2012

Nothing could please us more than word today that our man Curtis Cross- the impossible Black Milk- was pouring over a folder of some 400 (!!!) demo beats he'd been working on over the course of the year.  Late in the day he dropped a file to his soundcloud account called Demo Beats 2012 that is certain to create a quiet storm in the Hip Hop community.

In a year that's been dominated by micro cycles of hype and canonization in 'independent' Hip Hop (see Kendrick Lamar) it was reasonable to question what place was there at the table for the last great hope Black Milk the protege and heir apparent to the neo-soul throne of his mentor J Dilla.

Cross has left no place for doubt.  This 6:57 is more future forward than one might expect from the garrulous  producer.  With his most recent production efforts (after his 2010 signal Album Of The Year) he's produced a variety of projects revered by his acolytes all of which however failed to launch anywhere near commercially or critically.  His highly anticipated collaboration with Danny Brown the Black and Brown EP admittedly didn't amount to more than the sum of its parts (and was fairly thoroughly drubbed critically).  Similarly Random Axe the Hip Hop supergroup composed of Guilty Simpson, Sean Price and Black Milk yielded varied results.  Two recent collaborations with Jack White (Brain and Royal Mega) were promising in principal as was a live set at White's Third Man Records.  His much vaunted collaboration Searching For Sanity with vocalist Melanie Rutherford has yet to appear.

Demo Beats 2012 drops like something of a clarion call from a man who may feel like he has something to prove.  The futuristic style of the transmission harkens back to his own 2008 release Tronic which largely put him on the map particularly with collaborations like The Matrix (featuring Pharoahe Monche and Sean Price).  His first releases 2005's Sound Of The City (as well as 11 untitled tracks from August 2005), 2006's Broken Wax EP and the landmark Popular Demand (2008) established Black Milk as a strong advocate of the neo-soul tradition highly adept with the MPC 2000.  The Music Production Center 2000 has signal processing qualities that are highly pleasing to the human ear as most sample based music we're familiar with has been produced with this device.  Some producers would say that it is the loss of signal, a pleasing 'woody' quality to the sample, as much as the transmission that satisfies the listener aurally.

Milk, a drummer and percussionist, who appears on the cover of Popular Demand with an MPC tucked under his arm plays the 'instrument' live and in the studio better than most any human being.  Which is what makes this teaser of his current output so fascinating.  This material veers out into some new bracing territory (sounding at times unabashedly similar to even Dilla's Donuts with it's style of constant revolutions of sound) that suggests a much broader sonic palette and production environment.  Where Album Of The Year was definitive for how he captured the live sounds of instrumentalists Daru Jones (drums), AB (keys) and bassist Tim Shellabarger (not as much for his personal lyrics of the crushing year he had marked by loss) here we see a man tossing off, literally, a tossed off beat (one of 400 he'd rather hold onto for now) that echoes at points his deep crates neo-soul lineage while pointing clearly to a whole new bag.

True Story/ Dub Rock (Will Sessions vinyl)

It's very difficult to appreciate the sincerity and breadth of Detroit 'funk' band Will Sessions recent voluminous vinyl output unless you're as versed as they are in both Funk and Detroit Hip Hop.

As their name suggests they're a backing band for hire for fellow Detroit hip hop artists like Elzhi, Guilty Simpson and Black Milk.  They're also fully capable of backing actual Detroit soul heavyweights like Dennis Coffey who was one of Motown's original Funk Brothers studio band as well as having a substantial soulo career.

They're output of late (available on their bandcamp) represents intricate efforts to replicate live the productions of various hip hop producers; as they did on both Elzhi's recapitulation of Nas' Ilmatic as Elmatic with note perfect re-workings of beats by Pete Rock, Large Professor and L.E.S, or their Mix Takes One and Mix Takes Two which crams musical cues like a DJ set from the pillar of Detroit hip hop and neo-soul legend J Dilla, to his protege Black Milk, Guilty Simpson as well as rare funk cuts (and epochal hip hop samples) like Bob James Nautilus.



Here though on True Story they've truly out done themself.  True Story (moreso True Story Part 2 from Phat Kat's Carte Blanche)  is one of the most beautiful hip hop songs ever created with lyrics and vocals by Phat Kat (Ronnie Cash) and production by the notoriously underlooked and gifted producer Young RJ who with Black Milk were briefly BR Gunna .

In referencing the history of their contemporaries so flawlessly and with such reverence they are both doing something truly unique and making interesting statements about live music culture and sample based music culture.  Will Sessions are winking at the DJ, winking at the bedroom purist, the music writer and the crate digger.  More importantly they're winking.

Elzhi - Sound Clash Festival, Toronto (setlist)

Elzhi (elZhi)
Sound Clash Festival
Harbourfront Centre Stage
July 14, 2012
setlist

Blue Widow (from forthcoming album The Weather Report)
Halftime (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. Large Professor)
Life's A Bitch (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. L.E.S./ NAS co.)
D.E.M.O.N.S. (prod. Black Milk from The Preface)
Fire (Remix) (prod. Black Milk from The Preface)
Tainted (prod. Karriem Riggins, from Trinity Slum Village feat. Dwele)
Deadly Medley (prod. Black Milk from Album Of The Year)
Hiding Place (prod. 9th Wonder from The Minstrel Show Little Brother)
The World Is Yours (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. Pete Rock)
Come Get It (prod. J Dilla from Welcome 2 Detroit)
Do You (J Dilla from Detroit Deli (Taste of Detroit) Slum Village)
One Love (prod. Will Sessions)
Memory Lane (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. DJ Premier)
Represent intro>
Represent> (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. DJ Premier)
C.R.E.A.M. (prod. GZA, Wu Tang Clan)
Motown 25 (prod. Black Milk from The Preface)
It Ain't Hard To Tell (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. Large Professor)
Detroit State of Mind (prod. Houseshoes, orig. prod. DJ Premier)

Will Sessions Mix Takes (Take Two)

Will Sessions Mix Takes LP - Take Two (partial tracklist)

Rico Suave Bossa Nova - Jay Dee (on Welcome 2 Detroit) 2:11
Pressure - Black Milk (on Broken Wax EP) 3:19
Danger - Black Milk (on Broken Wax EP) 4:13
Take Notice- J Dilla featuring Guilty Simpson (on Ruff Draft) 5:14
Goatit - Black Milk featuring Phat Kat and Elzhi (on Caltroit) 7:23


Again can't pick out the opening couple of minutes but at 2:11 Shellaberger lopes into the familiar bassline of Jay Dee's Rico Suave Bossa Nova again off Welcome 2 Detroit.  Kacir on the MPC or more likely Beaubien on the keyboard chimes in the 'whistling' melody.  This is just the sort of silky groove with a live feel that's perfect for re-interpretation with an actual live feel.  Then at 3:19 they slip into the earlier work of Black Milk digging around fairly deeply in the crates to find Pressure off the Broken Wax EP of 2006. Then again at 4:13 Ryan Gimpert on guitar is coaxing Danger from the Broken Wax EP, that track originally being done with Phat Kat and T3.   At 5:14 it's enough of the pupil's work and the teacher wrests back the mantle.  Take Notice featuring Guilty Simpson is a staple from Dilla's Ruff Draft.  It's both an emblematic piece of Dilla's production but also a classic example of the unique nature of their collaborations together.  A Dilla beat for Guilty, or a Dilla beat that Guilty rapped over, well it's no longer just a Dilla beat.

Bringing the whole train back round to their frequent collaborator Black Milk, again showing their breadth of knowledge and dexterity even with a mix of live instrumentation and sequenced samples, Will Sessions launches (at 7:23) into what seems in hindsight an obvious bet: Goatit (off the Caltroit mixtape put together by Bishop Lamont and Black Milk) originally with Phat Kat and Elzhi.

Will Sessions are beasts. And men among men.

Will Sessions Mix Takes (Take One)

Will Sessions Mix Takes LP - Take One (partial tracklist)

Nautilus (on One) - Bob James (1:44)

Made You Look (on God's Son) - Nas (2:22)

The Clapper (on Welcome 2 Detroit) - Blu/Jay Dee (3:05)

Antiquity (on Love Is The Answer) - Dwight Trible & The Life Force Trio/ J Dilla (4:09)

untitled/fantastic (on Fantastic Vol. 2)- Slum Village (5:10)

Nasty Ain't It (on Carte Blanche) - Phat Kat/ J Dilla (6:39)

Will Sessions Mix Takes is a limited edition vinyl LP out this month on Fat Beats. It plays through like a DJ set with each side an uninterrupted instrumental: Take One and Take Two. Will Sessions is a normally 8 piece soul-funk band known for backing such guitar and Motown luminaries as Dennis Coffey (one of the original Funk Brothers) as well as swelling up to 15 pieces as the Guilty Simpson Big Band. They've likewise backed other Detroit hip hop luminaries like Phat Kat and in particular trumpeter/keyboardist/arranger Sam Beaubien and bassist/keyboardist Tim Shellaberger both made measured contributions to Black Milk's standout Album Of The Year.

Here the 5 piece is rounded out by their longstanding bandmates: Ryan Gimpert (guitar/keyboards), Bryan Arnold (Drums) and Eric Kacir (Percussion, MPC). But it's the repertoire not the personnel that is so bloody fascinating about these two takes of music- two sides of a slab if you will. I haven't pegged the opening cut but at 1:44 on the nose they clearly launch simultanueously into Bob James Nautilus - one of the most sampled songs in hip hop history. It is so pervasive a sample that most people of this generation will recognize it solely from Ghostface Killah's Daytona 500 breakthrough single with the singular video. Elsewhere on their Real Sessions release the band plays this number as So Gone/ Nautilus with Black Milk. They're sticking largely to the Bob James original, admittedly chopping the sample or portion that suits them, but the punch and recontextualization in a hip hop setting suggests that they are playing whatever the listener hears: Nautilus/ Daytona 500/ So Gone.  Slamming two tracks together that might not have met otherwise Will Sessions leaves the listener aghast when they drop the strangled guitar line from Nas' Made You Look exactly at 2:22.

Then at 3:05 they do one of the singularly coolest things I've seen an instrumental, at least hip hop, group cook up.  What they do is they play The Clapper production attributed to Blu/Jay Dee from his first solo album Welcome 2 Detroit.  The Clapper's a funny choice for a number of reasons the least of which is its name.  Particularly if you're familiar with the near constant revolts and revolutions of sound that define his seminal (and final) Donuts full length, The Clapper in comparison sounds like that records redheaded stepchild.  It seems highly unlikely that Yancey (Jay Dee, J Dilla) would have imagined his early beat tapes circulated to MC's with their jokish and tossed off track names would later become a source of deep reverence- but they have become just that.  The Clapper itself is a funny by appearances fairly simple beat to knock off.   This is a sign in of a great craftsmen, the apparent ease with which they seem to render their creations.  It seems likely, and the members of Will Sessions all studied musicians render it with due humour and revery, this track was odiously hatched together from god knows what arcane sources because Yancey liked the particular clap sound (or likely a number of claps) he was able to sample then manipulate through his MPC (Midi Production Centre).   This process itself, the effect that an MPC has on the sound of original source material, gives certain sounds a 'woody' or in any case a pleasing sound to the ear.  Every hip hop sample you've ever heard has been pushed through one sort or another of these little boxes- some would say the loss of information from the signal is sometimes just as pleasing to the ear.  For Will Sessions then to play a fairly simple little diddy, a melody, a couple of rhythmic conceits in 2/4 time off  the floor live is for them no big challenge.  It's in the winking self-referential nod to all that Jay Dee was aware of and put into the track in the first place that gives the moment it's grandeur.

Then Take One just continues to build with nuances only the deep Dilla heads and crate diggers are going to chin wag too.  Having not only dropped The Clapper the group seamlessly progresses into a deep instrumental entitled Antiquity, which would typically have out jazz vocalist Dwight Trible's gravelly sentient voice overtop.  Adding insult onto injury this again morphs into a vaguely recognizable untitled number from Slum Village's Fantastic Vol. 2.  The piece de resistance though has to be the clarion call of the signature Dilla siren from Nasty Ain't It off Phat Kat's benchmark Carte Blanche LP.  Here Shellaberger ever the rock liquid bottom switches from bass to the bass pad and punches out the distinctive and hard line.

Random Axe leak Chewbacca

In the quick runup to the release of Random Axe' (Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price) self titled another track is available for your listening pleasure.  Chewbacca featuring Roc Marciano opens with a Black Milk calliope beat you swear you've heard from him before - Sean P quickly diving his head into the snowy beats.

Random Axe "Chewbacca" feat. Roc Marciano by duckdown

Random Axe debuts self-titled at NYC listening party

Billboard is reporting on a listening party held at the Dominican NY Theater & Lounge for Random Axe's (Black Milk, Sean Price, Guilty Simpson) self-titled debut.  The 15 track album including the already previewed The Hex includes cuts entitled Chewbacca, Understand This and Random Call.

While Black Milk is the sole producer on the album - it is the uncanny collaboration of Brownsville native Sean Price's and Guilty Simpson's and their jocular style of jailyard collegiality that gives the album it's deep grind.  It's deep grind floating atop Milk's slightly-less-spaced (than this past years Album Of The Year) beats lends to its deep appeal.  Getting the sessions going with Price and Simpson engaged in any manner of chicanery was apparently a constant tug of war of productivity over hilarity.   Likewise while Milk conducted the sessions and had Price rapping his deep internal and stacked rhymes over 'Jimi Hendrix shit' - Price lobbied for Milk to come to the fore vocally on more tracks as he does on The Hex.

Random Axe Random Axe is being released June 14th on Duck Down Music.

Random Axe (Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price) collab drops June 14

The long in the works super-group collaboration between uber-Hip Hop producer Black Milk and gutteral gifted street voices Guilty Simpson and Sean Price is set to drop June 14th.

The lead track The Hex is now available for viewing, purchase (through Itunes) and listening.

Random Axe "The Hex" by duckdown

Daru Jones' & AB feat. Black Milk (On Deck)

Showing just how deep Daru's skills run - and nipping at ?uestlove's heels for live hip hop drumming supremacy - here is his own production featuring of course AB and Black Milk.

Black Milk Dub Rock (Tronic)

Here's a throwback from Black Milk's by now seminal release Tronic.

Black Milk @ Revival, Toronto, setlist and review (11.18.10)

After a surprise but perfunctory opening set by Dank (of Frank 'n Dank) with images of Black Milk looping overhead, his band composed of AB, Daru (Jones) and touring DJ 'Billy the Tour Manager' took the stage.

Between AB's keys stage left sat a lone drum pad, behind which was perched the DJ table, on the right was Daru's sparse kit of a kick drum, two snares (set tilted away from him) and a couple of cymbals.  Knowing that AB and Daru are far beyond simple touring musicians and in fact integral to the integrated sampled, electronic, live sound that defines Milk's title worthy Album Of The Year that he is touring behind.

Notably absent from stage (yet still on it oddly) were members of The Will Sessions Band formidably bass player Tim Shellabarger (whose thumb and thump are all over the recording) and master arranger Sam Beaubien (perhaps best known for arranging Mayer Hawthorne's A Strange Arrangement) as well as Milk's handful of Detroit based vocal peers (Elzhi, Royce Da 5'9", the notoriously slept on Danny Brown and Melanie Rutherford).

Reflecting how this is his 'most personal album ever' (the album of the year he had) the man born Curtis Cross set about to recreate with evincing clarity the precise sound crafted on his best album to date.  After a quick medley of tracks spanning Black Milk's surprisingly short career the ensemble rocked in some semblance of order through the bulk of AOTY (leaving out largely those tracks with guest vocalists).  Where his mentor J Dilla (whose passing as much as that of D12's Proof, Slum Village's Baatin, his own aunt and the near fatality in the form of a stroke that hit his business manager and sometimes DJ Hex Murda) was known for the soulful depth of his crates and unerring ability to capture bracing drum sounds, Black Milk has taken the formula a step further by first capturing the samples or sketching out the beat and having in particular Daru add a thick wash and stratified layers over top. 

While all of the AOTY material went over feverishly with Milk almost exclusively playing the role of MC (a role into which he's made a studied and notably confident growth) it was his conducting of the ensemble on the whole that was thrilling to take in.  Wanting undoubtedly to focus on MC'ing (an outsider would never know this man was the producer as well) that little brown box (the Akai MPC 2000) - the sampler which he has used to the most unique effect and on which he builds up his definitive beats on the fly - was sadly absent from the stage.  Instead during a handful of too-brief interludes Milk took to the drumpad extending cuts into longer yet still precise drum jams- including Tronic's Give The Drummer Sum and notably AOTY's Round Of Applause  whose studio rendition includes overheard studio cues - 'keep it going... on the one (let it breathe)... bring it back' -  made into a rallying cry live.  At perhaps the apex of the show's arc AB softly let loose that quad tone sequence that is known as the instrumental Tronic Summer.

Having elapsed most of the Album material to the elation of the packed audience Black Milk was freed up to take audience requests scrolling through his ouevre with the ease of a jazz musician.  Undoubted fan favourites would have to be his run through a handful of his finest singles career wide: Losin' Out (normally with Royce Da 5'9"), the AB imprinted Reppin For U, the supremely fitting Tronic Summer (which despite it's flawlessness Milk immediately outed jokingly as 'some Barbie shit') only to drop the monstrous hook of The Matrix.  This run of material off of Tronic trailed out understably after Milk's opening verse uttering a few lines of Pharaohe Monche's next verse: "Four-finger ring rap sling-slang, Pharoahe the flow's good/ you couldn't hang if you was Ving Rhames in Rosewood".

Making a suprise airing was Don Cornelius (named after the definitive Soul Train host of the same name) the one cut that didn't make it onto Album Of The Year whose hook is lifted undisguised from Lee Fields and the Expressions Love Comes and Goes.   Likewise fan favourite Hell Yeah seemed close to the set closer before Milk insisted on banging out a handful of tracks from Popular Demand taking it right back for his by now frothing fans.

There are few artists that can leave the stage and have their stage band hold the audience in an equal thrall.  That is of course bands that aren't integral to the recorded sound, players of the highest calibre and playing to fans of the deepest magnitude.

Black Milk (w. AB and Daru Jones), Revival, Toronto (11.18.10) 
(partial setlist)

365
Distortion
Welcome (Gotta Go)
Round of Applause (drum jam)
Over Again (AB backing vocals)
Reppin' For U
Try
Tronic Summer
The Matrix (incomplete)
Losin' Out
Give The Drummer Sum (drum jam)
Don Cornelius
Hell Yeah
Shut It Down