Eks - Throw-Up Concrète
Guido Marziale has been steadily making a name for himself with his sample-laden love letters to hip-hop and electronic music since 2015. Better known as Eks, the Italian's sound delves deep and bridges the gap between the experimental sampling pioneers of music concrete and reinvigorating it, taking cues from modern maestros of the boom-bap and wider rap sphere. His latest outing on Opal Tapes, Throw-Up Concrète (2024), is awash with found sounds and strange samples while remaining focused on the contemporary.
Throw-Up Concrète is a catatonic collection of cuts. It's like finding a beat-up 90s mixtape or people from the future finding one from us. This is another release that compliments the tape format wholeheartedly. Just listen to "Healthy Boy' and its raspy projections of melody that linger endlessly. It infiltrates street culture through conceptual experiments. Grime, drill, and boom-bap are flipped indiscriminately with cuts like 'Chop Aretuso'. The diversity Eks displays on the album is undeniable. 'Hi Rates' is an anthem, and serial head nodders are present throughout. You could also call it a fusion album, but it's much more. Tracks vary from contemporary weirdness to cryptic nostalgia trips to early pioneering like in 'Concrete Blues', drenched in a city music aesthetic. Spooky, fluorescent, and gritty aggression meld perfectly with experimentalism on 'Untitled Forever' to generate a snapshot of modern decay. 'Os_ag' introduces storytelling elements that elevate the tape, sounding like interaction is happening outside the Walkman headphones. With a wealth of talent either featuring or remixing Eks Opal Tapes' debut, no matter how you splice it, it was sure to be a mind-warping bop.
Tracklist:
Intro : Only Input
Healthy Boy
Hi Rates
Concrete Blues
Last
Litania Della Scelta
Os_ag
Untitled Forever
Terraforma
Chop Aretuso
Litania Della Scelta – Talpah Remix
Swerve On it -kNN Version
Vid To MP3 : Outro
Label: Opal Tapes (2024)
Eks - Throw-Up Concrète