| Breaking free of production duties for various Anticon emcees, on 10 Seconds Jel engages in what he does best - making tracks without a care in the world as to how they will be used. In this case, the songs are all instrumental and all created on the SP-1200 sampler. The sampler has a long history of use among hip-hop aficionados, but a limited sampling amount in length (less than ten seconds, hence the title) and bits (making the samples a bit grimy on the whole). That being the case, ten seconds and 12-bits offer up limitless possibilities and Jel takes complete advantage of the situation here, as the case with most of his production work with groups such as Themselves, Deep Puddle Dynamics, and solo projects by Sole and Sage Francis. On the whole, the songs are defined by a distinct funk. Yearning guitar licks; frenetic scratching, and bombastic drums are the order of the day on nearly all the tracks giving the album both a cohesive and monotonous feel. It's obvious, on one hand, that Jel is a talented producer, mining snippets of old records for the perfect sound on each song. On the other hand, however, few songs on the record stand out from this overall benchmark of quality. There are moments of pure brilliance, however. "Tune Select", clocking in at a lean ninety-seven seconds mixes a guitar chord, a bouncy beat, and a repeated chorus over and over to a hypnotic and glorious effect. Later on in the record, "Truncate" ups the funk element mixing a Stevie Wonder-esque bass and keyboard stabs to a constantly shifting, yet utterly familiar and stable beat. - Stylus |
2XLP/Out Of Print