
The Micro-Chop Daily X #3
A Micro-Chop playlist featuring 10 hand-picked instrumentals — every single day for an entire year.
Alright, three days in and The Micro-Chop Daily X playlist thing seems to be going OK. I’ve already heard a lot of positive feedback on the first two playlists and people seem to dig the idea of a mini-playlist every single day for an entire year. The best part of putting these playlists together is mixing instrumentals that have played an important role in my life for many years with songs I discovered as recently as a day or two ago.
For example, I first heard Squadda Bambino’s Clams Casino-produced song “I’m Official” while I was in graduate school studying special education back in 2010. I listened to it all the time back then and I’ve loved rediscovering Clams’ work on Spotify in the past few months.
I also put Kev Brown’s “Albany” on here, as both the regular version and instrumental of that song bring up a lot of emotions for me. “Albany” might be the best rap song I’ve ever heard about being stuck in the friend zone with someone you really care about. With verses like the one highlighted below, Kev never really seems to get enough credit for the lyricism he brings to this song. I could listen to it on repeat for an hour and not get sick of it.
“I don’t even know what to say/I made this beat, and thought about you today/It’s been a long time since I seen you last/It’s like time moves too fast to keep your grasp” — Kev Brown
Zeroing in on some of the mundane things that seem to be so important when we first catch feelings for someone else, he writes a beautiful song about wanting something more with another person even though he knows it’s impossible.
The production on the song only enhances it. From the understated but beautiful verse sections to the lump-in-throat inducing chorus, the “Albany” instrumental brings the already potent lyrics a heightened level of emotional intensity. Further adding to the layers of meaning is the fact that my cousin penned a song about his friend who died in a car accident in 2007 over this beat.
Outside of these two old favorites, I was also happy to include more recent discoveries like SADIVA’s excellent “8BITS” from her stellar Minutes album. The structure of the track is really interesting, as the mellow vibes for the first minute and thirteen seconds or are broken up by a beautiful vocal sample that adds so much texture and warmth to an already impressive offering. I’m happy that I discovered SADIVA’s work and look forward to exploring more of her music.
Between these three instrumentals and the other seven offerings, I hope you enjoy ever song that I’ve compiled for today.
The third playlist in this series features the following artists, with each name hyperlinked to bring you directly to their Bandcamp, SoundCloud, or website: Clams Casino, Jillesque, Sid Roams, brainorchestra., Sadiva, yonderling, Bronze Nazareth, Soul Choppa, Khrysis, Kev Brown.
Be on the lookout for The Micro-Chop Daily X #4 dropping tomorrow.
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