I am particularly susceptible to getting lost in albums that pile obscure samples on top of obscure samples. DJ Shadow, The Avalanches, Neat Beats. It’s like flipping through a music history book but with the pages all shuffled.
This 2001 record by Xploding Pastix is another one. During a specific four-year window of my life, I listened to it so much that it will often start playing in my head if I walk through the neighbourhood where I was living at the time. Some tracks sound like the intro to a spy movie, some sound like a Latin dance lesson on fast-forward. All are messy and frenetic and fabulous.
I’ve been re-listening to it recently, and I realize now that I didn’t give the album’s back half the close attention I gave to the first. I had almost forgotten about this song. It’s much more downtempo than the others, but still has all the ingredients of the record’s other tracks. Which are…
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. …double bass. They especially like bass lines that feature the instrument in its mid-to-upper range, with a bit of sliding here and there.
2. …vocal samples. They prefer movie quotes, like a great one from Katharine Hepburn, but at 4:07 here they chose Sonny Rollins: “…a little thing we hope you’ll be familiar with.”
3. …saxophone. I love the way the same sax line is played in one channel and then the other a few moments later, almost like a canon. Or doubletalk.
Recommended listening activity:
Eating a cake with multiple layers.