Samon Kawamura - Translations

Japanese producer Samon Kawamura's album is a smooth, slick trawl through the kind of sonic territory that will be familiar to fans of J Dilla and Madlib – there is much to be had here in the way of vibraphone, looped kicks and echoed scratching, albeit in a polished and smoothed-out form. Some of the between-track samples give a clue to the old-school hip-hop aesthetic Kawamura clearly applies to his work. There is an elegant beauty to his dubbed-out productions – All About You allows various organ riffs to loop sinuously around each other as simple boom-bap rhythms give way to a jazzier tempo. Occasionally, such as on brief interlude Everlasting, Kawamura achieves a blend of sample and instrumentation that is striking and original – more often his work feels studied, perhaps a little forced, leading you to wonder if opting for the direct scrutiny of an instrumental album was a bad choice. Certainly, many of the beats on Translations would sound great with the low-slung flows of Dilla, Quas or Kweli over the top, but without rhymes, the music has a tendency to drift into the periphery of the listener's attention. [Bram Gieben]