The Stance Brothers "Kind Soul" (Ricky Tick)
Blue Note issued a series of comps in the '90s called Blue Break Beats, featuring the full-length versions of songs that had yielded famous hip-hop samples. Old reliables like Lou Donaldson and Donald Byrd were well-represented, and although it was edifying to hear the original context of, say, the snippet that fuels "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down," the discs merely reaffirmed the idea that the hip-hop bastardizations were often more exciting than the source material. A decade later, it's all grist for nostalgia: not only the second-tier Blue Note shit and the golden-era hip-hop shit, but also the idea that any of it can sound *new* anymore. (Unless you're on Stones Throw, of course.) But if you're a semi-obscure drummer from Finland like Teppo "Teddy Rok" Mäkynen, you simply forge ahead with no hangups. His latest project, The Stance Brothers' Kind Soul, has all the requisite breakbeat fundamentals: snares that sound like they're being played in a basketball gym; closely microphoned kick-drums that thump with pleasing tightness; and an extremely minimal sprinkling of hi-hats. He's an obsessive the way Mark Ronson is: The basic soul/jazz/funk elements are shopworn, but the deep attention to "feel" -- and not just plain-old sonic accuracy -- adds a paradoxical air of freshness to the disc. Or maybe it's the fact that the primary melodies are almost all played on the vibes; if anything, those un-self-conscious xylophoney tones provide some Jetsons flow -- they amount to a space-age anachronism in a setting that otherwise might seem like a too-reverent homage to the inspired musical kleptomania of hip-hop's first decade. If anything, the optimism on Kind Soul isn't stale or forced, and that's a rare thing, for sure.
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