Dirty Jersey Week, Day 3: More Wax

Okay, now that we're past the novelty rap, how about some brand spankin' new Jersey Hip-Hop?  The Custodian of Records is one of the contemporary producers I've been most excited about in the last couple years; he's produced for projects you've me carry on about like 7 Immortals, Sparrow the Movement, Shawn Lov, and the Written On Your Psyche guys.  Now he's finally hitting us with his debut solo vinyl release, Less Work, on his own imprint, Adult Edu.  You might remember me tweeting about his GoFundMe campaign for this record last year.  Well, it reached its goal, the whole project's completed and donators are now getting their wax.  And happily, since I never like to spoil it for myself by listening to any digital musical samples in advance of a physical release, it lives up to expectations.

Every time I cover an instrumental album, which isn't often at all, I mention that I'm not a huge fan of instrumental Hip-Hop albums in general.  Hip-Hop instrumentals are usually more simplistic and repetitive than other forms of pop music because the lyrics are so much more dense and require concentration.  And that all works great for complete songs.  But when you get a break-beat album, you're like, "this is a nice little loop, but these three seconds are just going to replay unchanging for the next four minutes?"  Even DJ Shadow albums and the like, yeah they have more change-ups and samples swapping in and out, but they still seem to ask you to vibe out to some pretty basic grooves for long periods of time.  And all that's fine if you're a DJ buying a breakbeat album to mix or produce with; but it leaves regular listeners a bit cold.  Or at least to me, it feels like reading a screenplay instead of watching a movie.  But Less Work is more in line with, say, DJ Jazzy Jeff's "Touch of Jazz" in that it's meant to be listened to and keep you hooked.  Except without the scratches.  Maybe next EP, Custodian could add some cuts.  But then again, listening to this record, it doesn't need any.

Less Work is eleven tracks deep, though in terms of length, it's essentially an EP, as most are two minutes or less.  So that helps keep the pace up.  But more than that, it's just that these tracks are  more complex than just break-beats, with lots of vocal and instrumental samples coming and going.  And the tracks fit nicely together despite having really different types of drums and moods.  The fact that it keeps shifting definitely makes it feel alive, so you're rewarded for paying attention and you want to.  It's actually disappointing every time you hit the end of a side of the record, because it's pulled you in and left you wanting more.  It's definitely not often you find albums you can say that about.

So as you can see in the picture above, this comes in a fresh sticker cover.  This is available even if you didn't contribute to the original campaign, but it's super limited; only 100 copies were pressed.  So that doesn't leave a you a big window of opportunity to jump on this.  If you want to order a copy, I'm told the best way is to just email Custodian directly at fiverowsback@gmail.com; it's a pretty exclusive release.  And very much worth it.