You don't need us to tell you that California is crawling with beat-makers at the moment, they probably outnumber the rest of the population. It's always nice when you hear something that isn't generic hip-hop or identikit chillwave though, and this set of demos from Younghoon Beats is neither of those. Granted, you could sample some of these songs or mix them for rap, and maybe some of these samples come from that area, also these songs are very laid-back, so you could call them chilled. But chillwave this ain't, the sounds on 'Tha Blew Demos' are closer in spirit to the trip-hop scene so synonymous with the Bristol in the mid 90s.
'Only You' and 'I'm A Fool' both carry a soulful vibe on top of big beats and then 'Blew' samples, of all things, Blur's 'Country House'. It's actually quite an inspired choice and enough to make you wonder why that line hasn't been extracted before. Talking of samples (this album is probably full of so many that we'll never get them all and they will have been contorted beyond recognition at times), the sad-sounding 'Some Things' possibly takes a line or two from Nancy Sinatra. The mid-section is noticeably more downtempo and almost certainly suited to the more nocturnally minded, as that track is followed by the brain-muddling 'Feeling I Have' and the practically horizontal 'Way Out'.
Sharper beats and a bit more action are employed again on 'Become', but this still exerts a feeling of laziness, not in the music, in the feeling it gives you, and this is echoed on 'Monsters'. You begin to wonder how someone so seemingly lethargic managed to create this album at all, and the fact that he's made others is more of a surprise. There's no big shock of an unlikely high-tempo finale either, final track 'All The Game' is a mix of beats, guitar, the odd scratch and some lackadaisical bass, although the brass does give an unexpected lift for a brief moment. This is no way implying that 'Tha Blew Demos' is in any way boring, it isn't, but if you have stuff you need to do then save this one for later in the day.
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