Jel
10 Seconds
Mush
Jel is the samplin’ fiend behind Anticon-related hip-hop science experiments like the ethereal Deep Puddle Dynamics, the self-doubting emo-rap of Atmosphere, and the truly fucked THEM. On 10 Seconds (named after the sampling duration on an SP-1200), Jel displays his trademark beat-construction – dusty, dirty, murky, grimy, fuzzy, buzzy, meaty, beaty, big and certainly not bouncy – finally without all that pesky rapping!
OK, the rapping is sorely missed (Doseone, Alias, and Odd Nosdam all appear on track each… um, sort of), but Jel uses the lack of structure to his advantage, using the open space to be more tangential and free. It all seems to owe a tiny debt of gratitude to DJ Shadow’s landmark Endtroducing, but Jel definitely dances to the beat of a different drum machine, loading his tracks with haunting reverb, crunchy guitar solos, disembodied fuzz, overly-distorted drums and noisy stutter. Jel sounds like quite a dour sample-hound – austere organs ebb and flow in even streams, double-backed drums placed in the right spaces break the tide quite nicely. But, he also samples Buffy from The Fat Boys, so he’s not all sturm und drang, ya’ll.
Suffice to say, it’s pretty much the same Jel fare heard on countless Anticon releases, but the freedom allows Jel to be more intricate, producing a series of bone-crushing atmospheric beats that wrap themselves around your skull in such a way that you can either nod your head to them, get lost in them, or get scared shitless by them.
