Catalyst and Baka: Trouble Man
Muffled dialogue and beats mingle with clean vocals to create a patchwork of musical textures
Catalyst (of the Nice Guise) has finally posted his Trouble Man EP on Band Camp — the beats for which are constructed entirely of samples taken from Marvin Gaye’s soundtrack to the 1972 film of the same name and weaved together mostly by Decatur producer Baka. Catalyst himself built the beats for “Interrogation Room Interlude.”
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Catalyst’s swift lyrical drawl in “Drama,” “Jurisprudence” and “Practice Makes Perfect” mirrors Baka’s collage of blaxploitation samples and down-tempo ethereal hip-hop for a smooth and streetwise soundtrack. But the most intriguing parts about the whole thing are the varying textures going here. Fuzzy samples of dialogue and muffled beats mingle with clean vocals that create a literal patchwork of different grades of fidelity coming together for a sound that’s a noirish step son to what made RZA’s primitive production on all of those old Wu-Tang solo records (Liquid Swords, Tical, Iron Man et. al.) so appealing.
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