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Despite its near inescapable presence in modern day culture, saturating everything from car commercials to billion dollar movie soundtracks, I have yet to come to terms with the growing appeal of the latest iteration of electronica (or EDM, or whatever label is being used as the catch-all for the Skrillex era of dance music). Though I was never a huge fan of it, I at least could appreciate the beats and rhythms behind the music that earlier producers like Todd Terry, Carl Cox, and even Norman Cook were putting out over the past couple of decades. This latest dubstep inspired trend, however, with its blips, wobbles, and an approach to building a beat that is the audio equivalent of one of those sudden-drop roller coasters has left me feeling out of touch (somewhat related: I highly recommend this article about the Electric Daisy Carnival, which explains that feeling much better than I ever could).
Which makes it all the more impressive that Curly Castro, an emcee whose greatest musical achievement up to this point - in my opinion - has been the incredibly laid back, dubplate sounding Flatbush and Church, has strung together a series of appearances over these types of beats that have left me reconsidering my opinion of the genre. Castro's first foray into electronic music, at least his first televised foray, came during a freestyle session over a Debruit track while on an L.A. road trip with Zilla and Weiss. That was followed up with some work over a Starkey production, and for his latest he's used a beat by dubstep producer Skream.
On it's own, this stuttering beat probably wouldn't have held my attention but Castro's ability to keep up with it all the while dropping references to David Fincher films, Hell's Kitchen crime bosses, Madd (overweight) Rappers, and obscure characters from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is quite entertaining. Check it out:
Curly Castro - Lard (right-click to d/l)
Lard is off of an upcoming project with Rock The Dub, Rock The Dub vs. Curly Castro. Khal from RTD will undoubtedly have more details in the near future, so keep an eye out for it over on his site.
5/30/2012 7:30:00 PM posted by Fresh