C-Zar Van Gogh - This Time Next Year review

Year : 2012
Genre : Hip Hop
Label : SpaceLAB Recordings
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

SpaceLAB Recordings is a New York based workshop and full time music studio dedicated to the propagation of high profile hip hop that isn't afraid to focus on a positivistic behavioral attitude instead of the "ye dead, maffaka!'" obligations, but don't let this direction fool you into thinking that what you are about to be subjected to is cheesefest-compatible dinner table affair with the approval of enthusiastic Dr. Phil residents who love to showcase saggy chunks of lazy meat hanging on their arms upon clapping each time the host signifies the end of the current sentence with the rigor of a fractal eyebrow that puts the average lightning bolt to shame. The premiere mastermind behind the SpaceLAB enterprise is Jake Palumbo - even featured on the reviewed disc as a gu(e)st rhymer - and label prospect C-Zar Van Gogh comes to claim a healthy dose of your hip hop awareness via a 59 minutes Epic that promises authentic dirty fuzziness and exigent complementary instrumentalization. Read on to know more about C-Zar's intentions and about a hip hop arsenal that dares to be unrelentingly positivistic at heart.

This Time Next Year might very well be amidst the very first hip hop albums that manage to show HD balls without the usual/relative need to rely on the fluent and eloquent tools of creative cursing. Instead, the name of the game is crystal clear orthodox structure and a keen attention devoted to the implementation of high quality secondary details. The album delivers particularly strong via its production values, no doubt setting somewhat of a benchmark for all the peers looking to expand the mere vistas of contemporary ORGANIC hip hop. I hereby wish to emphasize my percept that the organic adjective is a significant one right now, as a premiere and exquisite charm of this LP is the mere consortium between beefy synth pop traditions and organic audio affections that the disc manages to create - no small treat - and maintain. An even more admirable one.

The album is fortunately free of hollow points - no pun intended - the flow is kept steady and smartly constrained along a contemplative mid-tempo pacing that does not seek to deviate all that much from pleasant and exigent orthodoxies. All this gives wide enough sonic real estate to C-Zar to share his sentiments. And BOY, he has a lot of those! And you better, if you are any kind of a rapper. C-Zar's timber is pleasant, his style and demeanor is peaceful and natural, and his lung capacity is about "G-Sus Effin", and he never is in danger of running out of thought provoking remarks that do not seek to shovel a particular belief system nor a specific point of view down on a throat. As common subterfuge courtesy would tamely (ha, ha.) insist, C-Zar gives status reports, and smartly packaged social commentary. A smartly packaged social commentary is suggesting the age of the lady you saw with a bucket of cocaine wrapped around her head. A good rapper must also be a stand up comedian with-, AND without all the humor in the vicinity at his disposal - John Carlin, a Modern Man, surely agrees.

As noted, the album aims to establish top of the foodchain production standards right from the beginning, and it remains faithful to this ambitious commitment. It is more of a question of the respective anatomies of the tracks and your personal taste which ones you will pick out as immediate candidates for devoted revisitations. The choice, fortunately, is pretty difficult, courtesy of a nice sense of abundant harmonic structures offered throughout the entirety of the spin. A well presented funky fixation is ubiquitous on the release. For example, let me share my sentiments regarding my personal current favorite. "Coffee &  Benson" - a hilarious retroid highlight that surely makes you tempted to slip into your secret quasi-tangerine Bruce Lee outfit with the black stripes on it. Kung-fu flute funky madness with fluently flowing rubber-hosed rhymes courting an especially organic and well researched sonic space. Gets one in the mood to put on a Tom Selleck moustache. (Without Tom Selleck, thank you.) The track called "Revolver on Chifforobe", - which features disc producer Jake Palembo - on the other hand, is a brilliant "anti-spiritual" mood-study that simultaneously manages to make fun of the menacing James Bond-soundtrack ethos WHILE honoring it with an especially original take on it - the track practically spills dark humor all over the place upon any and all interaction with it.

With 17 tracks weighing in at 59 minutes, C-Zar Van Gogh's This Time Next Year LP gives you a lot of high profile hip hop content to seek some rows of sonic teeth into, and the album doubtless is a relevant navigational beacon for the production aficionado, as well.

Check out C-Zar Van Gogh at his official site > - here - <.

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