The Witzard Premiere: BLKrKRT Serves Up a Batch of Freshly-cooked Precious Metals, Heavy Gems II; Hand-crafted Post-Dilla "Microwave Beats" Recorded, Tracked & Mixed 1/11-18 (self-released)
<a href="http://symsongs.bandcamp.com/album/precious-metals-heavy-gems-ii">Precious Metals, Heavy Gems II by BLKrKRT</a>
I've been corresponding with frequent
Darko The Super
collaborator and
Fort Worth, Texas
-based
Instrumental Hip-Hop
producer
Phil "BLKr
KRT" Ford
through
Twitter Direct Message
, Facebook Messenger, and
Gmail
for a few months now. I was lucky enough to premier
BLKrKRT
's 40th U DONT DESERVE THIS BEAUTIFUL ART
-released project,
Okinato Black
right here at
.
Okinato Black
is amongst
BLKrKRT
's final 3-4 projects scheduled to be released before he plans to retire from beat-making all together and pursue a potential career in fashion design later this year. Today, I'm happy to be premiering
Phil Ford
's whopping 41st project,
Precious Metals, Heavy Gems II (PMHG II)
, which is meant to serve as a warm-up collection of "line drawings/illustrations" or quick improvised sketches showing his progression between
Okinato Black
and his forthcoming
BLKrKRT LP II
.
PMHG II
is a quasi-sequel to Ford's similarly-minded 2013
; believe it or not,
PMHG I-II
were both single-handedly recorded, tracked, and mixed in full over January 11-18th 2013 & 2017.
BLKrKRT
's cites his sources of inspiration and influence behind
Precious Metals, Heavy Gems II
's sonic direction as
The Incredible Bongo Band
-centric documentary
, The Cardigans' Gran Turismo,
Shuggie Otis
, Oxnard emcee Kan Kick,
Tonto's Exploding Head Band
, Grand Puba's 1995 album 2000,
Brian Eno
, and
Camille Saint-Säens'
world-renown
The Carnival of The Animals
movements,
"The Swan"
and
"Aquarium"
(1885-86).
<a href="http://symsongs.bandcamp.com/album/precious-metals-heavy-gems-ii">Precious Metals, Heavy Gems II by BLKrKRT</a>
"All sketches/songs produced by BLKrKRT. Microwave beats made by sketching in FL Studio, editing pad-to-pad in the Roland SP-404, and EQ'd through Behringer Tweakalizer to Audacity... simple set-up and the Oblique Strategies app for iPhone. Sketches could not exceed an hour to create, start to finish. The full project was done in a week from January the 11th to 18th, the last day reserved for tracking. Mostly funky or synthy sample material and vintage [Virtual Studio Technology] with clean drums. The aim was to make a few selections that feel like the audience is along for the ride, as sonic landscapes are being explored and objects are being produced. [...] Lots of layering. Lots of playing with artificial environment beds for the beats to sit on; giving a different breath to each moment. A lot of playing with how the sound travels speaker-to-speaker, attack, delay, and limiter high compression on widely spread sounds. I was highly informed by The Cardigans'Gran Turismo record (1998) in constructing the drums sounds: tight and slightly metallic."
- Phil "BLKrKRT" Ford