Future Islands - Seasons (BADBADNOTGOOD remix)

It'd be nice to think of BADBADNOTGOOD as a Toronto band but I don't think the world sees them that way.  Although Matthew Tavares (keys), Chester Hansen (bass), and Alexander Sowinski (drums/ pig mask) were born here and met at the Humber College jazz program which has turned out a lot of good players and a lot of shit ones too.  As the oft told story goes they inspired by their love of prolific underground rappers like Lil B and more known artists like MFDoom and the Odd Future collective they thatched together a medley of Odd future songs for a playing test.  Their professors deemed the work of 'no musical value'.  Once Tyler The Creator saw the video they posted on youtube as the Odd Future Sessions Part 1 the rest was history (they followed with Odd Future Sessions 2 GOBLIN).   Only one is enrolled at the College exclusively for the dental benefits.  Without a doubt all of them will make more in their lifetimes as their own group, backing and producing other musicians and rappers than any of their dimwit professors.

By now they've backed Tyler Creator, the piano-illiterate Frank Ocean, created and composed music for the RZA's kungsploitation flick The Man With The Iron Fists.  They've put out two free mixtapes (you can download them free here- BBNG and BBNG2).  They've put out two live albums (BBNGLive1 and BBNGLive2) in addition to this year's proper full length III (2014).  They put out a track with Danny Brown and Ghostface Killah (Six Degrees) and word shortly dropped that they'd be backing Ghostface Killah (who has strong ties to Toronto through Raekwon and others) on a new album in 2015 called Sour Soul (the first track released was Gunshowers feat. legendary Detroit rapper Elzhi). 

One critic Jerell Tongson described excellently the BBNG sound writing that they "deconstruct the four bar loops, understanding how to work crescendos by stretching out and reshaping the music into their own vision of silky smooth key progressions, pounding drums, and tasty bass lines".   Now they've been given a brilliant opportunity to remix the song of 2014 Future Island's Seasons.  One dim critic described their sound on the Seasons remix as "a sort of cinematic jazz, to the extent that it could almost pass for an old James Bond theme."  No.  The sound they've clearly adoped for the Sour Soul sessions is just that- Soul- even more specifically an updated Funk Bros. or Stax Soul sound which is the perfect instrumental backdrop for Ghostface's dusty boom bap.  Call it GhoStax.  The Future Island's Seasons remix is cast in the same vein leaving the complete vocal intact but coming up with a soul backing line and melody progression that completely reinvents the song.  Things like this don't happen very often in remixes.  It's a magical thing.

BADBADNOTGOOD Biography

(l to r - Matthew Tavares, Alexander Sowinski, Chester Hanson)

It seems natural that aspiring jazz musicians (at Toronto's) prestigious Humber Jazz Program would be informed by the music they're listening to, only their instructors probably presume that their listening to the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Vijay Iyer or really getting out there with Steve Coleman. MF Doom and Odd Future notsomuch.

Collaborating first on an arrangement of Gucci Mane's Lemonade it was their performance project based on a piece of Tyler The Creator's music that tanked with their instructors but went viral online when they later released it as the Odd Future Sessions Part 1 (they later released part 2 as well).  This caught The Creator's attention from deep in a suburban basement lair with egg carton and foam stapled over ever possible surface, dimpling the walls in strange undulating patterns that absorbed him endlessly.

This led to direct collaborations with Tyler The Creator (such as Fish) as well as work with Frank Ocean who can't play an instrument to save his life.  Most exciting have been the collaborations between BADBADNOTGOOD or BBNG with Ghostface Killah and on occasion Danny Brown such as the greasy Six Degrees.

Now comes word that Six Degrees will appear on an entire Frank Dukes produced album to be entitled Sour Soul (due out on Feb. 17 on Lex).  Pretty Tony himself will rap on every single cut and the second single released to high anticipation is Gunshowers. 

Raekwon & Ghostface Killah NXNE, Toronto, June 17 (review, setlist)

Ghostface Killah and Raekwon - NXNE (Sunday, June 17)

Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, DJ Skratch Bastid
Yonge Dundas Square, June 17 2012

(partial setlist, all songs sung as duet)

Incarcerated Scarfaces (Raekwon original)

Ice Cream (Ghostface Killah original)

Glaciers of Ice (Raekwon original, Ghostface featured)

Winter Warz (Ghostface Killah original)

Da Mystery of Chessboxin' (Wu-Tang Clan)

Surgical Gloves (Raekwon)

R.A.G.U. (Ghostface Killah)

Mighty Healthy (Ghostface Killah)

Verbal Intercourse (Raekwon)

Eye for an Eye (Raekwon)

Apollo Kids (Ghostface Killah)

Broken Safety (Raekwon)
4th Chamber (Genius/ GZA)
new mixtape cut (JD Era)
Mt. Olympus (JD Era)
Protect Ya Neck (Wu-Tang Clan)
Raw (Ol' Dirty Bastard)
Uzi (Pinky Ring) - (Wu-Tang Clan)
CREAM - (Wu-Tang Clan)

Can't It Be All So Simple - (Raekwon)
>>>>

(note: this is a partial setlist - I caught at least 30 musical cues of seperate songs, here's 20 in order that I was able to identify.  More was played after Simple I just had to leave. Anyone with gaps or who heard a different song, sequence or sample please mention on the comments.)

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 added to Rock The Bells

Random Axe (Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price) has been added to this years Rock The Bells tour with headliners including Nas (with special guests Pete Rock, AZ & DJ Premier) Black Star (Mos Def & Talib Kwali), Mobb Deep, Cypress Hill, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, the GZA, Immortal Technique, Slaughterhouse and Ms. Lauryn Hill.  Rock The Bells 11 will be hosted by The RZA, Murs 3:16 and Supernatural.