Jel / Soft Money

Anticon

The head architect of anticon’s aural acropolis at long last offers his album-length debut, Soft Money. On 2002’s 10 Seconds, Jeffrey “Jel” Logan created a long-playing ode to his first real love, the SP-1200 sampler, composed entirely of hand-picked snippets from over three decades of hip-hop. Soft Money takes the same meticulous approach but expands it both literally and conceptually. Though undeniably rooted in the boom-bap of hip hop, this is an ode to all good music, channeled through one man, his machines, and a little help from his friends. Album opener “To Buy a Car” is a classic jam on anti-commercialism that builds to a fever pitch then recedes into the gorgeous calm of “All Day Breakfast.” “No Solution” opens with record static then glides into the smoothest Rhodes piano this side of OK Computer (courtesy of Dosh) while Fog’s Andrew Broder lays down some guitar à la Christian Fennesz. Guest Steffi Bohm of Ms. John Soda plays chanteuse on the dreamy noir-hop of “All Around” while Poor Righteous Teachers’ Wise Intelligent drops wisdom on the anti-Bush, anti-bling diatribe “WMD.” Jel also gets stellar contributions from Parisian synth-wizard Hervé Salters (General Electrics), anticon poet laureate Pedestrian, and cLOUDDEAD’s Odd Nosdam. With all of the above, Jel creates an ornate amalgam of progressive hip-hop, electronic composition and musique concrète.

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