We don't know where we're going but we sure make a lot of noise getting there!' so goes the tongue-in-cheek opening to Rapping With Paul White, the gifted South Londoner's first full-length vocal project. It's another left turn after last year's intriguing Paul White & The Purple Brain excursion into prog and psych-rock and deserves to establish its mastermind as one of the most versatile and individual producers working today.
Paul White first made his name with 2009's instrumental opus The Strange Dreams of Paul White which led Diplo to declare'I'm his biggest fan' and The Independent to label him'a 21st century DJ Shadow'. While included in the'beats scene' alongside Hudson Mohawke, Flying Lotus and others, Paul White's hip-hop sensibility has always been at the forefront, which partly explains why his 2010 podcast for LA's Stones Throw Records racked up 300,000 downloads in just a few weeks and alerted a new audience to the young Brit.
All this meant that assembling some of his favourite MCs was the easy part. Stones Throw artist Guilty Simpson appears twice, his grim warnings perfectly matching the sparse, brooding production on lead single Trust. Gap-toothed, mohawked Danny Brown is one of rap's rising stars a recent signing to A-Trak's Fool's Gold label, his lewd punchlines top White's exuberant production on the not-safe-for-work One Of Life's Pleasures. There's humour in New Yorker Homeboy Sandman's turn too, as one of hip-hop's most likeable lyricists recounts his cultural missteps during a trip to London over a quintessential Paul White track.
It's not all Americans on the mic: Jehst shows why he's one of the UK's most respected MCs on Indigo Glow, and One-Handed Music label mate Tranqill lays waste to Rotten Apples in the album's grittiest moment. And how may hip-hop records feature a folk singer from Wigan, Nancy Elizabeth, laughing her way through a bizarre Edward Lear poem? There's plenty for fans of Paul's instrumental work too: from waltzing drum machines to medieval vocoders, the interludes are as compelling as the vocal tracks.
He might not'know where we're going', but with work commenced on projects with five of the artists featured here and a new live show in which he sings, plays keys, drums and drum machines alongside label mate Mo Kolours, it's the'getting there' that'll be worth watching
With an exhilarating new style that is raising the bar for sound collage artists to an unheard-of altitude, Young Montana? chops beats into being on a hypercolor canvas that is saturated with soul and lit with innovation.
Young Montana? aka Jon Pritchard of Coventry, UK was hand-plucked into the insiders' spotlight after BBC Radio 1's Mary Anne Hobbs called him out as her"Favorite Unsigned Artist of 2010. " Mixes followed for the BBC and Andrew Meza's BTS Radio, and Young Montana? soon found himself riding an industry buzz and lauded from the likes of Pitchfork to The Gaslamp Killer as more and more people in the online underground received an earful of his sound.
Few producers can make music this multidimensional that is also fun on the dance floor, but 20 year-old Young Montana? works both the technical and psychological sides of the beat with equal finesse. Combining the rich hues of nostalgia from manipulated samples with futurized beat magic and an avant-garde style, Young Montana? 's experimental hip hop is smartly structured and swung out through a warm haze of grime, soul, folk, and glitched-out machinations.
YOUNG MONTANA? BIO
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Undiscovered no more, Young Montana? will soon see his music stretched around the world with the highly anticipated release of his debut album Limerence on Alpha Pup Records. A fine match for the forward-thinking label, Limerence is a wild ride of an album that showcases the newly minted producer's mad talents and kaleidoscopic sound.
Watch for Young Montana? to hit the road soon on tour with his eclectic new music, and just try to keep your eyes on this groundbreaking artist as he cuts and pastes his way to fresh sonic terrain and shoots into the stratosphere on a crazy carpet of beats.
Press Quotes:
Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC Radio 1: "Yes, it's official. My favourite unsigned artist of 2010"
Andrew Meza, BTS Radio: "Playful loops, glitches and bubbling bass, Young Montana? is yet another example of a new wave ready to be taken seriously. Jon Pritchard is the 19-year-old producer behind the Young Montana? pseudonym, and his fast forward career has been catching a lot of insider attention. Hailing from Coventry, in the West Midlands of England, Pritchard falls into a circle of artists recently featured on BTS, who've seemed to come out of nowhere and raise the electronic playing field. "
Louise Brailey, NME Magazine: "Accompanied by just a Macbook Pro and a controller borrowed from the future, Pritchard proves why his unsigned tenure was only temporary. Opening with a lick of sub-bass - a slug to the gut - Pritchard proceeds to chop, deconstruct and layer elements of his glitchy, sample-laden productions. Using fragments of sound like gels over light, he scults a set by turns abrasive and quicksilver; a tornado of muscle triggers that suggests the sickly grooves of Hudson Mohawke or the lopsided invention of Flying Lotus.
The similarities with L.A's finest beat purveyor extends beyond the slippery BPMs and hip-hop stylings. Like FlyLo, Young Montana? makes cueing sound files on a laptop seem watchable, proof that bedroom producers practice their moves in front of the mirror too.
Mary Anne Hobbs is about to have some company in the Young Montana? fanclub. "