| Instrumental hip-hop and I have a rocky relationship, but it's one that the Opus is working to mend. Mush has lined up a steady stream of my favorite releases over the last year, and Breathing Lessons definitely falls into the stack of things I've listened to more than anything else lately. Whispering voices and moody ambient loops lie under the beats for most of Breathing Lessons giving the record a kind of hip-hop-noir feel not unlike the old Wordsound and Asphodel releases that first pulled me into the world of instrumental and experimental hip-hop. This record is so solidly constructed that I don't even mind that it nicks the "Give me love so that I can kill" sample already used to perfection by Meat Beat Manifesto. The guest vocal by Lord 360 on "Isis" is intelligent and tight; cerebral but with a groove, and groove is what makes most of the Opus' work stand out. The beats are constructed from a classical hip-hop paradigm with looped patterns of fours and eights, breakdowns, instrument drop-outs, and the occasional beat-juggling that sounds like it must come from a pair of turntables (even if it doesn't). Instrumental hip-hop can often feel like it's waiting for something, or that it's somehow missing the vocal intended to tie it all together, but that's never a problem for tracks like "Whirlwind-Guardian" or "The Strange Adventures of Mr. Happy" where the music alone is enough to propel the songs forward. A steady diet of instrumental hip-hop will leave just about anyone thinking that it all sounds the same, and to be fair, a great deal of it is constructed from the same sliced up not-so-rare grooves and jazz riffs, but the Opus layers compositions with enough spooky atmosphere, musical slivers, and finely tuned beats to make a record worth seeking out. - The Brainwashed Brain |
2XLP/Out Of Print