Hey there fellow tourists, I hope that you all are enjoying Spring since it started about four days ago because I know I have. Although I know not everywhere is enjoying as nice of weather as we are here in San Diego, I hope that your Spring is a pleasant one. To aid with that I figured I’d do a Souvenir of the Week that was upbeat but still a little bit relaxing, especially since some of you might have just finished midterms/finals or are about to do so. So, without further ado, this week’s souvenir is called the Curses from past times EP by hip-hop producer PoleteR.
Truth be told, I couldn’t find much info about ProleteR except for this little blurb about him on freemusicarchive.org
ProleteR is a french producer, making music for years, first performing in bands as a guitar player, he gradually fell into production and hip hop. ProleteR released in November 2011 his first EP Abstract Hip-Hop / Jazz, “Curses from past times”. He’s a member of Dusted Wax Kingdom label.
Since then he has released a collection of bonus tracks and three other EPs, with the most recent of them being pressed into vinyl and still for sale on his bandcamp page. Besides putting out a decent amount of great work over a few years, ProleteR allows you to name your price when you download any of his work from his bandcamp page. So if you want it for free all you have to do is enter in $0 when you’re checking out or if you want to pay like $10 or $100 then you can do that as well. Also, he is fine with people using his music in their projects or youtube videos as long as you follow these conditions that he lists on his facebook page’s about section
1) No commercial use of the result (e.g. advertisement).
2) No modifications. If you want to remix my songs or rap over a beat, you need to ask me first
3) Please put me in the credits / youtube description, with a link to my facebook, bandcamp, and my soundcloud page
Now that you know all about how this is free and the musician is a pretty fair and reasonable person, lets get to talking about how good this EP is.
Now if for some reason you haven’t read my post about BADBADNOTGOOD‘s album BBNG2 you might not think that jazz and hip-hop would be a great combination, however this EP is another example to the contrary. This EP blends hip-hop beats with jazz perfectly, together these elements they build up upon each other instead of detracting from one another or simply being there as a gimmick. To put it simply, this doesn’t feel like a hip-hop release with jazz influences or vice-versa, but instead a true merging of the two genres. This is done skillfully through the production of beats best suited for the jazz samples and the selection of jazz samples that feel at home amongst hip-hop instrumentals. This can be found all through out every single song on this release, but some of my favorite examples are April Showers, U can get it, and Muhammad Ali.
The only other thing that I feel like I really should say about this album is about how versatile it is. It is able be light and relaxing without becoming boring and it is also able to keep you entertained and actively listening to it without losing its relaxing feel. From listening to it with a nice set of speakers or headphones to having it on in the background while you hang out with friends or while on a drive, this EP is always enjoyable.
My favorite tracks off of this release are April showers, U can get it, Muhammad Ali, The misfit song, and Soul Key (Cuts by DJ Crabees). Hopefully this will help you have an enjoyable and relaxing Spring and/or spring break, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all next time.
P.S. Click right here to download this EP and any of the other great releases by ProleteR. Its always nice when you can get great music for free from a fair and reasonable musican, isn’t it?
Photo credit: http://proleter.bandcamp.com/album/curses-from-past-times-ep
Original Punk Rock Tourist photo taken by Monique F.
Block quotes from http://freemusicarchive.org/music/ProleteR/ and https://www.facebook.com/ProleteR.beats/info?tab=page_info respectively