“What a beautiful beat I am about to destroy” - Del Tha Funky Homosapien
Ever since Hip-Hop’s inception, the producer has received second-billing. The thrill-me-now proclivities of both the MC and the listening public have always been to favor the acrobatic word slinging of the rapper and then to pass on a favorable nod to the beat or sample-based hook as an after-thought. It is the producer, however, that is responsible for the trends that run and dominate hip-hop. Where would rap be without Dr. Dre’s keyed-up synth lines ushering in West-Coat gangsta? What about Prince Paul’s oddball pop-culture references or the RZA’s cinematic string samples and obscure kung fu films? The same goes with the Neptunes’ skittering, off-kilter, minimalist funk tracks and Eric B.’s virtuoso scratching and reliance on old soul standards. With much of hip-hop’s innovation coming from the producer, it is still standard practice for an adequate rapper to save a mediocre beat, but occasionally insane production work can also save a clumsy attempt at rapping (see: Mims “This is Why I’m Hot”).
This chronic undersigning of producers beneath the massive clout of the MC is perhaps responsible for the relatively limited number of prolific producers who actually put out instrumental hip-hop records. A notable exception is Manhattan’s Blockhead, best known for the production work behind Aesop Rock and his frequent collaboration with Cage, Murs, Slug and Mike Ladd. On his fourth proper album sans vocal contributions, Blockhead’s scattershot production defies easy categorization or genre-specific pigeon-holing. Perhaps knowing that whatever you produce isn’t going to fall to the whim of Aesop Rock’s throat-grabbing, visceral vocal delivery explains the loose, open-ended feel of The Music Scene. Blockhead allows his tracks to wander, pulling in anachronous elements from wherever he chooses, knowing that his dexterous musical choices will be the songs centerpiece.
Justification for an instrumental hip-hop album should be that something is inherently missed with the inclusion of vocals; like when a producer lets the beat ride out for 30 more seconds after the MC exits the track and you realize there is a killer electric guitar sample hidden beneath the innocuous beat or layered, scaled piano lines. With that in mind, Blockhead has these delicious bits of ear-candy, these brilliant programming flourishes that make his hour-long The Music Scene worthy of back-to-back repeated listening. There are some things that simply fly by you the first, second, or third listen. “Only Sequences Change” cruises a boilerplate jazz standard over a tumultuous sea of hiccupping beats, syncopated handclaps, and wait for it…that orchestral swell. Frantically bowed violins taken from a Bernard Herrmann-esque string sample lead an already frantic track to its near breaking point.
The inclusion of movie score samples and great depression-era big band homages give the album a decidedly cinematic feel. “Cinematic” is a great buzz word used to describe instrumental music as being incidental to cinema. Instrumental hip-hop usually unfolds itself slowly, reaching several climaxes, never selling itself totally on a hook or chorus, often book-ending with a similar musical refrain. In this way, The Music Scene’s twelve tracks are a collection of auditory short films, with a decidedly skewed take on classic Hollywood. The siren-like wail of electric guitars and sampled vocal choirs on “Attack the Doctor” is Blockhead’s In The Heat of the Night. The effortless beauty of sampled strings and soulful saxophone samples bolstered by a swinging funk beat of “The Prettiest Sea Slug” could be his equivalent to Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye.
Blockhead’s vocal samples run the gamut from brilliant to preposterous and often fall back on the album's decidedly retro feel, sampling songs from the 20’s to 30’s, vocal stabs of tortured bluesmen from around the world, and at least one strange etiquette obsessed sample from a film scene. The samples are often keyed up, buried beneath layers of distortion, serving as a counterpoint the fluid exchange of musical ideas in each track. The inclusion of a field recording of a profane rant from some very disgruntled customers is a surprisingly successful move in “The Daily Routine”. The track's somber feel frames perfectly the embarrassment and raw humanity that comes out when people lose control of themselves. A vocal sample that loses its appeal after its introduction is the vocoder-heavy sung vocals on “Four Walls”. Happily for Blockhead, a misstep like this happens only once an album.
It is apparently only in hip-hop’s underground that instrumental hip-hop records are received with open arms, and as such they happen pretty rarely. The Music Scene doesn’t feel like a runoff for Blockhead’s unused and undercooked musical ideas; every song is fully-fleshed out, with a trackable trajectory that moves along with the pace of a good film, it’s subtleties gradually forming the greater narrative arc. With The Music Scene Blockhead accomplishes something truly grand.
Track List:
1. It's Raining Clouds
2. The Music Scene
3. Only Sequences Change
4. Which One Of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer
5. Attack The Doctor
6. The Prettiest Sea Slug
7. The Daily Routine
8. Tricky Turtle
9. Four Walls
10. Pity Party
11. Hell Camp
12. Farewell Spaceman
