In the mid-'00s, a combination of Dilla’s Donuts, easy-to-use digital production technology like Fruity Loops, and websites like SoundCloud gave aspiring producers of instrumental rap a muse, a method, and a destination. The beat music ecosystem exploded; Donuts was a record that launched 10,000 loopers, a globalized corps of dedicated amateurs, some of whom—Shungu, Teebs, Lee, Knxwledge—have been able to break out ahead of the pack.
But the SoundCloud universe isn’t necessarily kind to aspiring producers with no formal sense of what they’re doing behind the boards. Some of the stronger beat albums of the past decade have come from knowledgeable studio musicians, people like Karriem Riggins, who cut his teeth playing behind some of the biggest names in the world (Paul McCartney, Diana Krall). Deantoni Parks has a comparably decorated background: He’s collaborated with canonical progressive acts of several different decades (John Cale, Sade, the Mars Volta, Flying Lotus) and is an astounding technical musician, as evidenced by his tenure teaching at the Berklee College of Music, or, if you prefer, this Nike ad.
Parks’ latest solo, Technoself, is above all else a showcase for what the Georgia native can do with a drum kit, a sampler, and a limited number of hands. (He only has two.) Every track here is a live recording, an astounding feat given the percussive complexity present on something like "Graphite", which with its surround-sound distortion and riffage feels as if it were carefully engineered over the course of a month of lab work. Frequently, the aggression of the drumming itself is a thrill. "Automatic" is a fantastic pump-up track, with the same wall-to-wall excitement as Eminem’s "Til I Collapse" (and none of the yelling.)
The ambition on Technoself is staggering, particularly given the technical limits that Parks has imposed on himself. Album opener "Black Axioms" uses alternating samples and BPMs to deliver a crash course on modern African-American music, hinting at different eras and genres (blues, house, hip-hop, footwork) by use of speed and musical association. Another track, "Fosse in the Grass", manages to deal cleverly (and wordlessly!) with the issue of appropriation, as it references the choreographer Bob Fosse, and Michael Jackson’s famous borrowing of his moves for "Billie Jean". (Beyoncé was also accused of stealing from Fosse for the "Single Ladies" dance, worth noting given Parks’ connection to the queen through his work with producer Boots.)
And yet, when building upon those two sturdy legs of musicianship and conceptual heft, Parks is sometimes guilty of leaving the third leg of the tripod unstable. Several of the tracks here are not all that much fun to listen to, and it can seem as if Parks values astounding his audience over engaging them. Try watching the video for the track "Bombay" and then simply listening to the instrumental. When you can see what Parks is doing with his set-up, you can’t help but to be impressed. But the track alone isn't even half as compelling. As an exercise in musicianship and high-level conceptual art, Technoself is masterful. But over the course of an entire album, it becomes overwhelming and just a little bit masturbatory.
