Breathing Lessons, the new record from the tandem producer team of Mr. Echoes and The Isle of Weight, does not require any sort of artificial life support: these eleven instrumental tracks have their own heartbeat, their own pulse, and — most assuredly — their own breath. Working under the moniker The Opus, the duo has done work for a number of luminaries in the beat-making and hip-hop industries, demonstrating that they know how to drop a beat, scatter a sample, and find the right echo in any room. Breathing Lessons is a series of slumbering instrumentals which quietly and effortlessly take control through their particular pacing and careful attention to structure and composition.
The opening track, “Fanum’s Organs,” staggers out of your speakers with an endless vocal loop, a battered drum pattern, an untuned piano with ancient strings, and a cold wind which blew into the studio a week ago and is still whispering in the corner of the room. The mood set by Mr. Echoes and The Isle of Weight is one of fear and apprehension as if the act of spinning old vinyl has released ghosts which haunt the cables and mixing deck. The analog synth melody of “Mission Control” has a decaying Theremin-esque tonality to it — not much more than a fading breathless wail. A ghost of a piano melody hides beneath a DJ Krush style beat pattern in “Symbiotic,” while a pattern of water dapples itself against the outer walls of the studio, the slash and drip of the rain caught by the mikes (and, in fact, a goodly portion of Breathing Lessons brings to mind DJ Krush’s early instrumental work).
Too often hip-hop gets caught up in the flash — the gangstas, guns and cash — and forgets what it is that makes us listen. Breathing Lessons is a series of Buddhist mind cleansing exercises, instrumental beat-scapes which take the rhythms of hip-hop and temper them with strings (“Life’s Endless Cycle pt. 1” and “Life’s Endless Cycle pt. 3 – Evolutions”) and the subtle coloration of processed field recordings (“Symbiotic”) so as to give us room to breathe. In the tiny hours of the day, all that you have in the silence of the city is a head full of fears and memory. Breathing Lessons is the soundtrack for this fading hour, eleven tracks which will temper your ghosts and calm the restlessness of your unresolved spirit. Nocturnally restful and hauntingly evocative.
Breathing Lessons is OUT NOW on Mush Records.
