RJD2 – Third Hand
XL Recordings (3/6/07)
Indie/Experimental
RJD2, a producer and favorite among underground hip-hop crowds, announced late last year that he would be leaving Definitive Jux Records, to try and shop around the material that would later be released by XL Recordings as Third Hand. He felt that the material was too much of a deviation from his hip-hop past, so much so that it would be malapropos for Def Jux. Interesting.
Turns out RJD2 (né Ramble John Krohn) learned to play a shitload of instruments during his high school years, as he went to a musically-focused vocational school in which he played in a jazz combo. That ended up being useful with this album, as virtually all of the songs are devoid of sampling, as Krohn instead opted to play all of the instruments live—kind of like Moby, but with less sucking. He sings on ten of the 15 tracks, again eschewing his earlier work, in which he gained critical acclaim for producing beats for several underground emcees.
Even though he shuns the samples for this album, there’s still a heavy use of electronic items such as the drum machine and obligatory synthesizer, but the end result is much more organic than before. “Sweet Piece” and “Get It” are beat-heavy and substantial, as in the former, Krohn marries his earlier style which the indie vocals, and end result as really not bad at all. “You Never Had It” is a light and airy tune that falls somewhere in between Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. “Have Mercy” could probably get irritating if one were to hear it several times a day, but luckily that won’t happen because nothing on this album is really that radio friendly—outside of the local college stations.
“Reality” starts out like something that would be used in car commercials or trailers for some crime drama, though it quickly morphs into a bluesy ’60s pop thing. A lot of the album, actually, carries a bit of a retro tone, in the vein of Stereolab or High Llamas. It has a great deal to do with the organ work, as it was a common instrument with everyone from The Doors to The Cowsills, and most of this material is much, much closer to the latter than the former, as the organ in “Laws of the Gods” is very reminiscent of “The Rain, the Park, and Other Things”. On other songs, like “Someday” and “Work It Out”, Krohn channels his inner Brian Wilson, while “Legends” is very Jean Michel Jarre/Tangerine Dream. Loved it. On “Rules”, he throws in some Roland TR-808 to see if anyone’s paying attention. I was. Come on, I’m Mexican. We love freestyle, and 99.9% of the stuff was solely produced with the TR-808. I’m like Pavlov’s dog here.
As RJD2 had been cashing in by letting his tracks be used in NBA 2K6, NBA 2K5 and NFL 2K5, chances are nothing on here would work particularly well in anything of that nature. Krohn decided to take a chance on a new direction and it actually works very well for what it is. The majority of the material takes ’60s pop and gives it an electronic spin. I don’t really enjoy indie rock that much, and perhaps I should have assigned this one to Daniel Kozuh, but I’ve already buried him under enough of a stack of shit, and I had nothing to do tonight.
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