Anticipation
The Riches Instrumental
I’m From PG
Oddisee (Blog, Twitter, Bandcamp)
Odd Spring, 2010
Oddisee Music
It’s been a minute since I’ve posted an mp3 but as soon as I heard this, I knew I had to post it up and help spread the word. Prince George’s country (Maryland) never sounded so good. This is the last in a seasonal series of releases Oddisee has given away over the past year. I mentioned the first one when I posted the excellent Diamond District album last year. Like that album, the vocalists are (sometimes) a nice addition but the real draw is Oddisee’s production. I’m a sucker for organ and anything cinematic but he really seems to be zeroing in on the organ/synths/strings trifecta on this one. It’s hard to know where the samples end and the instruments begin. I would be interested to know what instruments he played and if there are any guest instrumentalists. The intro to “Anticipation” is the perfect example. The “you got to learn the tricks of the street or-” sample has an organ line in the back that sounds like its part of the sample but then continues for 4 bars after the sample cuts out. It’s met immediately by a low and fuzzy synth bass line and then met by a second high “summer madness”-like synth line four bars later. It’s not a combination that I’ve heard a lot but it sounds like a perfect (yet unlikely) match.
The more I listened to the Diamond District album and learned the different MC’s flows, the more I realized that every verse that I liked was Oddisee’s. This album is no different. I would say the only downfall of this album is, in fact, the (MC) guest talent. I don’t want to disrespect, I’m guessing these are cats from his area and friends of his but they definitely don’t shine on his tracks like he does. Generally their verses just glide by except for Kingpin Slim’s first verse that kinda ruins “Anticipation,” one of my favorite tracks. Which is really too bad because his first line is so witty (if he means it the way I hear it). After the “you got to learn the tricks of the streets or” soul sample gets abruptly cut off by the beat, it never comes back, as if to say “learn the tricks or…(it’s a wrap for you).” After a bar K.P.S. says “sounds about right” and I would like to think he’s referring to the aforementioned interpretation. After that it all goes downhill [commentary in italics].
I think they waitin’ for two niggas to just go in on the beat, knam sayin?
[thanks for defining the track title but actually we're pretty accustomed to an 8 bar intro]
Darker than the introspective of an introvert [grammatically and conceptually problematic]
…
Mind over matter, that’s a mental quirk
chirp, jump, mentally you like a twerp
you spit like a drool, i am like a burp / earl [please tell me he regrets making that simile]
me and odd star power like we are the world
we don’t need ya’ll referral
i’m a signature, singing to a whore in singapore
got her open like a single ??? [if she doesn't seem open off your b.s., she's not good at her job]
mi amour, furthermore, if you see me singin’ on a track
it ain’t whack, it’s the single ladies that i’m singing for
if you don’t like it, you don’t like girls [file under (middle school) response to "death of autotune"?]
These are all free releases. I highly encourage you to go to Oddisee’s bandcamp and download them in the digital format of your choosing. He is also going to release them as a vinyl boxset sometime this summer so be on the lookout for that too.
In other news, these are (320kbps) AAC (.m4a) files. As I was ranting earlier, I’ve stopped using mp3s whenever possible, mainly due to their disastrous tagging implementation (don’t ask) and and that includes here.
Songs are available for two weeks.
