Edan
(Five Day Weekend/Stones Throw)
There's nothing like a surprise mixtape from a long, lost friend. After a five
year absence from the game in the wake of his 2005 album Beauty and the Beat, hip-hop's psychedelic auteur Edan returns with
Echo Party, a half-hour-long continuous mix of old school hip-hop tracks the
Maryland-born Berklee graduate was given access to by his distribution group,
Traffic Entertainment. These classic cuts are then processed through a series
of audio manipulations and embellished with a variety of otherwise un-rap-like
instruments such as a Korg synth arpeggiator, Big Muff distortion pedal and
analog tape echo, giving the tracks an incredibly bugged-out feel, as if
WBLS-FM was being cosmically transmitted through Jerry Garcia's amp during one
of Ken Kesey's early acid test parties.
However, given the disc's brevity, unless you are a total Edan completist, it's a little hard to come to grips with paying a full-length price for an EP's worth of material, at least in my estimation. If you want to really catch the full flavor of Edan the Deejay in full force, head over to Archive.org, where Edan has posted downloads for a pair of his amazing radio shows for TheCryptOnline.com, which serve as more expansive versions of the concept he is shooting for with Echo Party (and a whole lot cheaper, too). Had Edan went another half-hour with this album to include some of the obscure acid rock and psyche-jazz he plays on the air, it would be a lot more of an enticing investment.
Standout Tracks: This is one continuous track. RON HART
