Musique Non Stop | eMusic Electronica |  |
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Posted: 13 Apr 2014 11:00 PM PDT
 Exploring and expanding upon the intersections of hip-hop and electronic music Like his contemporaries, Banks uses his music to explore and expand upon the intersections of hip-hop and electronic music. But where Rustie’s sound is characterized by brassy stabs, Lockah’s is bubbly and optimistic, drawing heavily from Miami bass and the dance-crossover melting pot of mid-’90s radio. Banks’s pop vision is at once unassuming and exacting, with straightforward, repetitive harmonic progressions providing a foundation for minutely chopped-up beats and see-sawing synth lines. “If Loving U Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Wrong” nods to INOJ’s classic “Love You Down” before expanding into a lush landscape that hovers somewhere between kitschy homage and highbrow reinterpretation. Banks’ sharp mixing allows him to tackle a gamut of sounds, from the glitchy, discordant syncopation on “Ayyo Tricknology” to the upward-spiraling “Heartless Monster.” And though there’s a certain irreverence at play here, the most jokingly-titled track, “Summer Jorts (Some Cats Still Do)” is also the album’s most ecstatic moment of originality, a blippy, Nintendo-via-YouTube confection that could easily be the song of the summer. It’s music that rewards short attention spans while playfully encouraging a deeper response.  |
