It’s hard to believe that something like this still exists…. I kid you not: an Instrumental-HipHop-record, which neither »glitches« nor »crunks« or »wonks«. Instead, »Interludes After Midnight« propagates analog production-methods, and Tony Simon does not hold back his reminiscences of the Golden Age of DJ Shadow’s »Endtroducing«. But it’s not only the references to that very special time around midnight («Midnight In A Perfect World«) that he shares with the aforementioned record from 1996, the whole sound-aesthetic remind the listener of the 1990s, but without ever sounding dusty or out-dated. It’s quite the opposite, which is why this approach is still (or again?) surprisingly fresh: obscure vocal-samples, 70s-brass-sections and funk-basslines on dryly grooving, foregrounded mid-tempo-beats determine this sound and are vocally supported only by a single guest-appearance of Baby Dayliner in »Beyond Reach«. And not even that track would have really needed the singing. Hence, on the side, Blockhead belies all the damn haters, who keep insisting that he only really fires on Aesop-rock-records. In short: »Interludes After Midnight« is simply twelve phat tracks, without even a single interlude.
Amine Laje
Datsha
Rotary Phono Lab