There have been occasions when it appears like in every single place you look, you see the hand of Hazard Mouse. During the last decade or so of labor, the New York-born producer Brian Burton has accrued an inventory of credit that learn like a who’s who of recent music. Adele, Gorillaz, U2, Beck, The Black Keys, Norah Jones – and that’s earlier than you get to his creative collaborations, with Cee-Lo Inexperienced in Gnarls Barkley, The Shins’ James Mercer in Damaged Bells, and Karen O for 2019’s Lux Prima.
As spectacular a CV as that is, it’s generally given the impression that Burton has been eager to go away his previous behind him. He started his profession as a hip-hop producer, recording the seminal 2003 LP Ghetto Pop Life with the Brooklyn MC Jemini earlier than breaking into the general public consciousness with 2004’s The Gray Album, a visionary – and really a lot unsanctioned – mash-up of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ self-titled “White Album”. Since The Gray Album, Burton has often returned to rap (specifically, see Hazard Doom, his collaboration with the late masked rapper MF DOOM). However by and huge, it seems he’s nudged his profession on a distinct monitor, honing his expertise as a musical auteur and leaving the beats and rhymes behind.
Cheat Codes marks Hazard Mouse’s return to rap, and does so with panache. This collaboration with Tariq Trotter – aka Black Thought of The Roots – is the results of a creative collaboration that’s been teased way back to 2006. And on Burton’s half, you sense a level of want fulfilment. He describes Trotter as his favorite rapper, and you may hear it; these heat, vintage-tinged tracks really feel elegantly crafted, formed to the contours of Trotter’s voice.
The method is deceptively easy. There are 12 tracks right here, most constructed round an prolonged pattern pulled from the depths of Hazard Mouse’s deep cuts part. The cinematic slide of “Saltwater” is spun collectively from “L’Amico Suicida” by the ’70s operatic Italian prog group Biglietto Per L’Inferno, whereas “Equivalent Deaths” shakes a shimmering section from “Future Recollections”, a monitor by the obscure UK psych group Uncooked Materials.
However Burton isn’t a type of samplers who appears overly involved with protecting his tracks. Certainly one of his tips is to retain a fraction of the music’s unique vocal, letting it slide into focus behind the MC at an opportune second. See “Generally”, which takes a snatch of Gwen McCrae’s “Love With out Intercourse” and slows the vocal into an androgynous cry of despair.
Cheat Codes appears like a platform for Trotter’s expertise, Burton lining up the beats and letting his hero spit unimpeded. There’s no surrounding idea, no skits or extraneous scene-setting. Tracks like “No Gold Tooth” and “Shut To Well-known” showcase his mixture of lyrical ingenuity and pugilistic one-upmanship with out distraction. You get the sense they may have made Cheat Codes in a state of airtight seclusion, simply the pair of them vibing off each other. As a substitute, it includes a various, if rigorously chosen parade of friends. Michael Kiwanuka delivers a breathy hook over the atmospheric boom-bap of “Aquamarine”. “As a result of” options verses from Joey Bada$$, Russ, and Hazard Mouse’s vocal protegee Dylan Cartlidge. And there’s an unfeasibly stacked lineup on the claustrophobic “Strangers”, Black Thought budging as much as accommodate each A$AP Rocky and Run The Jewels.
For a lot of, although, the important thing verse would be the late MF DOOM’s cameo on “Belize”. Burton says he recorded the vocal after the recording of Hazard Doom’s 2005 album The Mouse And The Masks however hadn’t but discovered a spot for it. Deployed expertly right here, it captures what DOOM did finest – a mix of gymnastic wordplay, cartoonish imagery and playful assonance that takes just a few listens to completely unpack. Followers have been clamouring for a follow-up to The Mouse And The Masks for years. It seems to be likelier than ever that report won’t ever come. However Cheat Codes finds Hazard Mouse rolling with a brand new lyrical foil and this one feels prefer it might run and run.
