As a co-founder of Brooklyn’s Dutty Artz collective alongside globe-trotting ethnomusicologist DJ/rupture, Matt Shadetek is no stranger to international cratedigging. The label's grown to be regarded as a great educator in global beats and dance cultures: Hispanic traditions of cumbia and bachata, Jamaican dancehall, Angolan kuduro, and so on. In turn, Dutty Artz has developed a reputation for fostering older, lesser recognized sounds, and fusing them together to build something new and relevant. Often their DJs are informally delegated the task of exploring their own musical roots; Chief Boima is a stan in African dance music, Geko and Uproot Andy are well versed in Latin music. And with The Empire Never Ended, Matt Shadetek, born and raised in New York City, puts aside his wide-cast net to release an album of hip-hop instrumentals.
Though surprising at first, it's not an entirely offbeat turn. Shadetek has been revisiting his love of hip-hop over the last year, releasing “Giddy Up”, a self-described banjee rap track starring Le1f, and “La Vida Loca” with Fabolous and Pusha T collaborator, up-and-comer Troy Ave. The latter makes it onto the album and its piercing, soaring synth wails and big orchestral melodies serve as a primer for the record's larger theme. A product of the early days of New York hip-hop, clubbing at legendary drum-n-bass, jungle, dubstep, and garage party Konkrete Jungle, and a stint living in Berlin, Shadetek hasn’t entirely succumbed to any single trend or genre. He has, however, beefed up his drum machines with snares and hi-hats instead of dem-bow riddims and reggae grooves, and taken a few stylistic notes from Lex Luger to make a hip-hop record with horizons wider than just New York City. He does so with flair.
A large chunk of this album contains trap instrumentals, but Shadetek chooses subtlety in place of someone like Waka's in-your-face approach, turning the collection into a psychedelic journey that’s best for headphone listening. On opener “Visions”, a muddied voice chants as fluttering bleeps accent the trudging drums. “Jaguar” plays out similarly, but with added menace. “Logos” turns rolling snares and syncopated bass kicks into a cinematic scoring for a grim walk through city streets-- then unexpectedly launches into a frenetic dancehall riddim played out via buzzing, pitched-down synths while pushing the snares and bass toward rollicking insanity. Then there’s “Madness”, one of the album’s highlights and a testament to Shadetek’s production know-how. (He also teaches production at NYC’s Dubspot DJ school.) It’s a gorgeously lush orchestration where bloated wubs of bass bolster forlorn synths and a kick-drum. The warped vocal loop becomes a stoner's anthem and a drunken, lovelorn sentiment in one.
As far as the tracks with actual MCs rapping over the instrumentals, "Psychomatic", featuring Chan Dizzy and Stratdon, plays out as a dubstep-infected take on R&B. And then there's Riff Raff, whose appearance on "Bout It Girl" is wildly confusing but somehow makes the song a standout of the 12 tracks. Its druggy, screwed hook and minimal snaps make the perfect background to Raff's sharp lines, like "Pop a pill with either hand/ I'm ambidextrous." Let's not forget that DJ/rupture put out an album with James Franco a few years back. Organized confusion is part of the point here: The album’s title comes from Philip K. Dick’s Valis, in which the author falls into crisis over the basic nature of reality and meaning. This thing has come full circle.
