KeyCMND.com: Secondhand Sureshots
Published by: KeyCMND.com
Date: May 3, 2010
Format: Web (www.keycmnd.com)
Type: Music Review
Various Artists – Secondhand Sureshots
Secondhand Sureshots is the result of four LA-based beat makers who, with five dollars for five records, sifted through stacks of old thrift store vinyl with the intention of making something old and discarded new again. Commissioned by Dublab, producers J. Rocc, Ras G, Daedelus and Nobody each created one original song from their previously unheard thrift store finds for the collection and its accompanying documentary film. Further, in the spirit of recycling, for the vinyl release of Secondhand Sureshots, which includes the four initial tracks as well as additional remixes of those tracks, 500 old gatefold vinyl jackets were reclaimed, and the release’s artwork was silk screened on top of the original sleeves.
The most interesting part about the music that came from the Secondhand Sureshots project are the separate identities of each producer to be heard in the tracks. Even though the methods were the same in the beginning, the results are purely individual. The sounds used to craft these songs are too many to list in their entirety, but include Middle Eastern beats, piano and organ melodies, and voices used for percussion, among other purposes. When the original four songs end—which they do so quickly, as they make up about 15 minutes in total—it feels a bit unfulfilling. The remixes that follow are okay, but they aren’t what make Sureshots interesting. Had more beat smiths been commissioned to take on the same challenge as J. Rocc, Ras G, Daedelus, and Nobody, a more satisfying release could have been made. There are plenty of records in thrift stores out there, and there are plenty of DJs and producers who might have created some pretty cool songs out of them, as these four did.
B