Blogarhythms

Trips to the cinema are nice and all, but for the last month or so I’ve wanted to take off on a weekend day and hit up a couple of my digging spots to pick up some dusty wax. I haven’t been digging in what feels like forever and am feeling a little stagnated by the piles of largely familiar albums taking up space around my apartment.

When flipping through stacks of vintage used vinyl I usually find old Soul and Jazz records the most attractive. Being denied the opportunity to come up on some dollar-bin gems though leaves me no choice but to stick to my ever-growing stacks of new releases. So what’s a dig-site-deprived crate-digger to do when confronted by a pair of bands populated by members of the Hip-Hop generation whose intent it is to recreate (or update) the feeling of those old sides that provide us our beats?

That’s the question I had to ask myself when Three Way Intersection, the debut album from Ave.To, a trio comprised of beatmakers Oddisee and Unknown, and sax & flute player Kolai, landed on my desk. Being a fan of Oddisee’s production work for the Low Budget posse and others (as well as his blog) I was amped to hear what this hybrid of Jazz, Soul and Hip-Hop, this amalgam of live instruments, digital programming, samples and beats, was going to sound like.

Such a proposition usually makes me think of those Hidden Beach albums that give popular Hip-Hop hits a Smooth Jazz rework. Thankfully I don’t think the work Ave.To and thee group of DC-based musicians they employ put in amounts to all that. And with selections like the Afro-Beat workout “Future Funk,” the locomotive “Natural” (with its astrological vocal samples), the bass-heavy “Xess,” the folky “Unmandyax” (replete with acoustic guitars and off-kilter drum-programming), the beat-centric neo-Fusion of “Mass Transit,” and the proggy “Gallery Place” (which sounds like Weather Report if they were on CTI, and CTI were a Hip-Hop label) there’s no way they could be mistaken for easy-listening muzak.

Ave.To “Xess”

Ave.To’s Three Way Intersection LP is out on Asahra Music today.

You’ll have to wait a little bit longer to hear the newest project from Columbus, Ohio-bred producer J. Rawls‘ newest release from his Liquid Crystal Project, a live band which plays a brand of Jazz/Hip-Hop fusion he straightforwardly calls “Jazz-Hop.” That is, unless you don’t mind paying import prices. Their sophomore LP J. Rawls Presents The Liquid Crystal Project 2 is out in Japan already, but it’s due for release here in the states on Polar Entertainment in August.

I’ve been a fan of Rawls’ for some time (since he laced Black Star with “Brown Skin Lady”) too, and was interested to hear what he’d do with a group of musicians at his disposal. He goes straight for the beat-digger heartstrings on “A Tribute to The Beatnuts,” “A Tribute to The Beatminerz,” “A Tribute to Souls” and “Loran’s Dance Redux (Push It Along),” a tribute to Idris Muhammad and A Tribe Called Quest alike. But cuts like “Digital Funky,” where “Soul Makossa” meets smooth Jazz-Funk a-la Faze-O’s “Riding High,” Soultronica instrumental “Rob’s Gem,” “Me & Cousin,” a concoction of jazzy keys & fat synth bass over a stutter-step break, gooey Head Hunters-era Herbie-style synther “Hebejeebees,” “B’s Gem”’s Earth Wind & Fire-influenced Soul, and “The 6th Minute,” which layers piano-bar keys, space-sound synths and horn-blasts over a speedy double-time drums, snare rolls & claps provide a variety of unrecycled flavors.

J. Rawls Presents The Liquid Crystal Project “Digital Funky”

While they’re not quite as satisfying as the real thing, these reworks of the old vinyl sound will just have to hold me over until I can get my ass to a used record store or swap meet.