Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. Sometimes – sometimes, you know, like once a year maybe, maybe, there’s an album you hear once or twice and instinctively know it’s destined for classic status. The kind of album that will form the backbone of respectable music collections in 5 years. Donuts was an album like that. Madvillainy was an album like that. Hell, Cosmogramma was an album like that. Sam Baker’s Album is an album like that too. It is an album destined for approving nods of hip-hop heads the world over.
In a previous review for this site, I touched on the idea of beat-making as sculpture. You chip away a lot, chisel away a bit, and then you’re left with something that could be rough, smooth, small or large. Well, Sam Baker’s Album is more like a painting. Each colour represents a different genre. Sam Baker thinks to himself, I want something that people can recognise as hip-hop right away, but I want it to be more than that. So he takes some funk red, soul brown, dubstep blue, mixes in a touch of classic hip-hop magenta, and finishes with a few strokes of chiptune yellow. He doesn’t need the jazz green today; that can wait.
He throws some of his paint at the canvas. Some goes through a frenzy, Jackson Pollock style. Some in a warm and nostalgic fashion, befitting Monet. But there is such a finely woven, skilfully constructed sculpture to it all, that the more you peer at what Sam Baker has made, the more you realise it’s not a doodle, or a sketch; it’s some kind of masterpiece. An album with its carefully calibrated internal logic, perfect sequencing, clever (and funny) sampling, and flat-out bad ass beats. It just keeps coming; the hits are wall to wall. Sam Baker’s Album is 40 minutes of soul, grace, intelligence, care, and one incredible record collection.
J Dilla’s crown has a deserving new wearer.
Tracklisting
1. Escape
2. Bedtime
3. Pressure
4. Bricks
5. Already
6. Frosting Packets
7. Kitties
8. Where Am I
9. Cushion
10. Turtles
11. My Buddy
12. No Dinner
13. Understanding
14. Wonton Special
15. Taco Delay
16. Lifesized Stuffed Animal
17. Sometimes
