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The UK producer is joined by some famous friends on a surprising journey. TIP!
Watch The Ants, Paul White’s forthcoming EP, is sure to further solidify his reputation as one of the most innovative producers in hip-hop and beyond. The South Londoner is joined by the motley crew of Trim, Sean Price, Homeboy Sandman and rap superstar-in-waiting Danny Brown, who recruited Paul to produce nearly half his forthcoming album Old and cited him as “my fav producer to work with”.
First single Street Lights features Danny Brown, whose vivid portrait of a Detroit blighted by poverty and neglect is a perfect foil to White’s pounding war drums, strings and spectral choir. Trim, the ex-Roll Deep member and James Blake collaborator, invites you to Get Your Head Round This. He weds his unique delivery and caustic punchlines to a beat which shows that while other producers flock to the trap, Paul White heads to the toy shop. New York heavyweight Sean Price offers grim threats over the exotic instrumentation of Slugs Don’t Hug before rap’s most likeable lyricist, Homeboy Sandman – who featured on Paul’s last full-length, Rapping With Paul White - lets in a little light on Find A Way. His melodic, contemplative wordplay over a bassline groove and psyched-out washes of reverb should allay any doubts that hip-hop ain’t what it used to be, while serving as a teaser for his Paul White-produced EP due on Stones Throw this year.
Though it boasts an enviable roster of MCs, Watch The Ants also contains plenty for fans of White’s instrumental work. Alongside the rappers, familiar names like Roland, Moog and Korg crop up throughout. They’re joined by an array of more surprising instruments such as finger cymbals, conga, and kzink kzink, all of which White plays himself – and see if you can spot his vocals. He can still make a killer beat, but on Watch The Ants Paul White hints at forthcoming explorations of krautrock, new-wave and psych. Minus, Divining Rod and Seagull Conscience are hard to categorise, existing in intriguing sound worlds of their own. They demonstrate perfectly why his talents are in demand from musicians beyond hip-hop circles – as illustrated by So Far Away, his track with Charli XCX, which Pitchfork called “a clear highlight” of her Best New Music-earning album True Romance.
Paul White followed his cult-classic debut, The Strange Dreams Of Paul White, with Paul White And The Purple Brain in 2010, unleashing his idiosyncratic blend of prog and psych with a beats sensibility into the world, and 2011’s Rapping With Paul White showed off his music’s easy affinity with rap. Watch The Ants unites all of those strands with a more expansive and ambitious approach. Brimming with new ideas, Watch The Ants may showcase Paul White’s well-documented hip-hop chops to perfection, but it also positions him on the cusp of an exciting new musical phase. |
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