By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the long awaited return of Paavoharju and their latest, YÖN MUSTIA KUKKIA, and D2x’s visceral jazz rap odyssey HOTEL 1105!
D2x – HOTEL 1105
Genre: Chicago Hip Hop, Jazz Rap
Favorite Tracks: “Suite Life,” “Dreams Of An Adolescent,” “Waves & Moonlights,” “Blue in Green”
The warbling, free-flowing sax playing and gospel coos that cut up and twist HOTEL 1105 opener “Suite LIfe” recall so vividly an era when Alchemist beats were essentially taken for granted and Roc-A-Fella was running the table with emerging phenoms like Kanye and Beanie Sigel that there is nearly a sense of relief that accompanies it. D2x isn’t aiming to be nostalgic per se, although your early 30s are certainly a time rife for falling back on the things that made you who you are. Nonetheless, the Chicago-based rapper clearly finds a freedom in mining the types of gripping soul samples and twinkling R&B atmospheres that made his hometown such an important scene throughout the 2000s and early 2010s.
HOTEL 1105, D2x’s sophomore effort, is a tight, breezy affair; he studied the likes of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder to understand the art of sequencing and building a tight record, and you can feel it. One of the deeper cuts on the LP, “Summer in Venice (Intermission),” is an immaculately crafted journey, deliberately paced with a smoky trumpet solo right in the middle. D2x and executive producers Ro Moore and Millwood clearly delight in the minute details, letting the record flip kick off with the soaring guitar and piano stomp “Waves & Moonlights,” or closing the album with the woozy, cinematic merry-go-round “Blue in Green.” Unlike some of his more established peers in the Chicago scene (see: Saba, Noname, Open Mike Eagle), the lyrical flow is refreshingly straightforward—he’s cramming ideas and bars into each track with a conventional and increasingly approachable delivery, and because the production is so colorfully detailed and given space to breath, a line like “It might take time I can’t run / I’ve been on this route to see the sun / to see the ocean breeze in the front / to love what I dream, God son” dazzles with passion. D2x’s faith and conflicts play out with such a hypnotic grandeur throughout HOTEL 1105, you’d assume it was wisdom and prose coming from a much older man. Experience one of the year’s best hip hop records over on Bandcamp. [CJ Simonson]
Paavoharju – YÖN MUSTIA KUKKIA
Genre: Psychedelic Folk, Folktronica
Favorite Tracks: “Haihtuu,” “Yön Mustia Kukkia,” “Jää”
Paavoharju, since its inception, has been indebted to the natural world. The Finnish collective—formed by brothers Lauri and Olli Ainala in 2005—revels in translating fleeting moments and memories into sound while letting their surroundings seep into the songs, filling them up. Their approach is uniquely liquid: choral recordings, distorted synth pads, and plucked guitar form the basis of most of their songs, but each become manipulated beyond recognition or blanketed in recordings of running water, footsteps through snow and abrasive wind. The end result can be soothing or unnerving, depending on who you ask.
Paavoharju’s first proper album in a decade, YÖN MUSTIA KUKKIA (Finnish for “Black Flowers of The Night”), was directly inspired by glass plate negatives found by Lauri in an abandoned house, most discovered in such a state that even the slightest manipulation turned them to dust. Some of the images were converted into audio, and the noise that results from that transformation permeates most of the tracks here. This fascination with decay, its natural patterns, and the beauty of letting things simply wither away has informed much of Paavoharju’s previous material, but in YÖN MUSTIA KUKKIA that theme is pushed front and center.
In true Paavoharju fashion, the songs sprawl and shift constantly. “Pyhään aukiopaikkan” starts light and airy with birdsong and strings, until a distorted breakbeat fades into place and anchors the track down. Saxophone, an owl’s hoot, and synth arpeggios weave in and out of the mix giving the piece a surreal, spellbinding feel. This is the case for most of the tracks: as soon as you notice a new sound breaking through the waves of fuzz, it’ll already be on its way out. The mood throughout is dark and bittersweet. The dense, abstract soundscapes are vast and cinematic, and the album’s best moments either lean fully into that grandiose feeling or stray away from it entirely, tenderly constructing passages that feel as fragile as thin ice.
The title-track serves as the album’s centerpiece, and could best be described as a lantern that bathes the murky forest surrounding it in warm, yellow light. It’s one of their most outright uplifting and joyous songs: aided by electric guitar and playful violins. Mimosa Virtanen’s soaring vocals fill up the stereo field until the track’s bursting at the seams, right before it dissolves away and leaves nothing but static behind. On the other side of the coin there’s “Jää,” which is relatively restrained and pairs a delicately twee vocal melody with a crystalline synth and earthy, pattering percussion. Its lethargic pace and almost lullaby-like tone render it one of the project’s most intimate and emotionally resonant pieces.
Even if it proves overwhelming at times (owing to its exhaustive collages and the constant push-pull feel in the arrangements), YÖN MUSTIA KUKKIA paints a gorgeously spectral picture that begs you to immerse yourself in its depths. Let the ambiance and noise surround you, and it might just help you remember memories you thought long-forgotten. You can check it out over on Bandcamp! [Jay Bracho]
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