| Jel is the ageless hero arisen from the dense beats and abstract lyrics of underground, out to slay the dragons of hip-hop with his trusty SP-1200. By day, Jel is the Anticon Corporation's in-house board mogul building tracks for Themselves and Deep Puddle Dynamics. By night, Jel works the street corner at the intersection of progressive hip-hop and experimental fusion; a beat pimp pushing underage percussive tricks on everyone from Sage Francis to Slug. Jel runs his business from the back seat of his low riding SP-1200, the classic 1985 sampler known as much for its significance in early hip-hop as for its agonizingly short sample time. Relishing in his instrumental anachronism, Jel follows up his solo debut, Greenball, with 10 Seconds an album named after the SP's sample length. Jel builds his magnificent fifty-seven minute abode of instrumental hip-hop ten seconds at a time, drizzling diced drum loops over layers of horn stabs that attack shredded vocals. A quote from Oliver Wang in the liner notes reads, "The first thing you notice about any SP-1200 beat is that it's dirty. Dirty, dirty like the South. Dirty, dirty like city gutters. Dirty, dirty like project hallways. Sharp, clean drums get dragged through the grit; clear, resounding baselines become dark and murky; and bright horns sound slathered in layers of grime." So what does all this aural filth end up like? Think grits smothered in butter. Dirty funk, soul, reggae, rock, and hip-hop all elementally deconstructed, mashed together, boiled to perfection with some bits of Anticon rap, and smoothed over with a studio feel the rivals a modern masters such as the Rza. It feels like a cross between turntablism, electronica, and hardcore percussion The tracklist reads like the SP-1200's user manual, with song titles coyly named after technical specifications. "Multi Pitch" breaks open the album when a soul singer emerges from the soothing chorus of tribal flutes and chants, "It's a new day. It's a new life for me, and I'm feeling fine" before drowning in a sea of reverbed organs. Its successor, "Multi Level" is built over the tracks spoken musical directions, which guide the manipulation of a beatbox sample and swirling bass lines as they flow between the channels. Choppy vocals define the aptly titled "Loop/Truncate" as Jel assumes the sample heavy styling of Prefuse 73 infusing it with throbbing funk as it is spewed from his 12-bit wonder. Arguably the best track, "Subsong" delivers oriental strings and a minor key groove punctuated by a haunting chime every few bars. Full songs like "Subsong" and "Multi level" are all too rare, as Jel tends keeps many tracks shamefully short. Cuts clocking in at around a minute exhibit Jel's ingenious ideas, but stop short of their actualization. "Decay/Tune Select" entices with its pounding party groove but dissipates all too quickly into "Forget It" and its wandering 60 cycle hum and the chant, "I know it. I know it. The best is to forget it." Likewise, "Special" warns listeners to "heed the rhythm" as Jel immerses crowd cheers in reggae funk, but the track only hints at on the pounding flourishes Jel could apply if he gave himself to time to explore the idea. As engaging and essential as Dj Shadow's Endtroducing was back in 96, and as relevant and innovative as RJD2's Deadringer, Jel's 10 Seconds is a necessary album for 2002 . If Jel can do all this with ten seconds I look forward to seeing what he can do with fifteen minutes. - Harvard Independent |
2XLP/Out Of Print