Neil Rolnick Delivers a Unique Set of Pieces That twist, contort, and change Shape
Recent release from Neil Rolnick represents a bit of a collection of works that the producer has put together, many of which revolve around sampling different songs and spoken word, and layering, tweaking, and sculpting the shape of them as they come through, giving the pieces a completely different atmosphere and life altogether.
This was such a surprising and cool approach to creating something that is unbelievably inventive and engaging, and in such a way that you wouldn't expect it to be. This is mainly because I really didn't know stuff like this existed until now.
I love being turned on to new approaches in musical creation, especially ones that bend boundaries at free will the way this one does.
Among the many samplings include rock, blues, country, cinematic, and more.
This is a very effective experience, more than anything else. It takes you through certain familiarities but changes the essence of them in different ways.
There's a lot of borderline brilliant experimentation going on, and a lot of those elements pull you into the record further and further.
Some of it's very tripped out and throws surprise curveballs at you, but after a few songs in, you begin to really understand Neil's world and why he does what he does.
Each of these samplings is from something that spoke to him. Perhaps they were a certain part of the soundtrack to a chapter in his own life, and therefore he felt a want or need to take the original pieces and affect them, reshape them, and digitize them so that the landscape was different. Maybe he wanted you to hear them the way he heard them.
Maybe this is just what he heard in his head when he listened to these songs.
It's a thin line, but that certain air of brilliance hovers around this record consistently.
You listen to certain parts of tracks and you wonder how he even did that or what brought that to fruition. You wonder whether or not he was just playing around, experimenting, or had a plan for how this would actually sound in the end.
Either way, it's really engulfing and immersive stuff.
The record is called Messages, and it kicks off with "sOmANy mE's," which is a spoken word track, and it's sort of glitched out, taking elements of words and stretching them across longer distances, creating something that gives it a semi-haunting effect.
Throughout this track, he takes elements of the spoken word and puts some through a synthesizer, and he begins to play phrases of sentences in different keys, creating harmonies, melodies, and more using that vocal from the spoken word itself.
This is what sampling is for those who don't know. Taking a piece of something and running it through certain software so that you can play it on keys or use it as beats.
This is what I mean when I say an air of brilliance. You have to be able to even have the idea to do something like this in the first place in order to go on to understand how it's going to work.
It's such a cool concept to me. It's so experimental and out there, but I love how unique it is. How freeing it feels.
Even after this first track alone, you kind of sit back and wonder what you just heard and how it was pulled off.
There's a certain element of technical musicianship that it takes to do something like this.
So, right from that first song, I'm pulled in.
"Gate Beats" is the next track, and this is taken from what sounds like a jazz quartet performance, and it's run through these different effects that cause a compression gate to let the sound sort of fold and unfold back and forth throughout its course.
"WakeUp" is a sample from the classic single, and this is changed and run through modules, re-sculpted, and sort of folded like origami into this whole other thing.
He's able to take different elements of the song itself, it seems. Almost like soloing out vocals or instruments and affecting just layers of those at certain points.
I'm not sure if that's exactly what he's doing, but it sounds like that.
So you have these songs that are taken from different eras and genres of music, and are filtered through, rearranged, and electronically digitized, chopped up, and reconstructed in such a unique way that he's able to write what sounds almost like other songs from those original pieces.
"Mono Prelude" features some great keys and vocal sampling put together, sometimes lining up rhythmically, overlapping, and creating different vibes as it unfolds.
This release is such an enlightening experience. It's just different. It brings you those nostalgic and, once again, familiar sounds and songs, and removes them from their comfort zones.
This was loaded with different elements of emotion, a lot to chew on in terms of things to say, and I think it takes a certain kind of ear to really pick up on all the little nuances that Neil inputted when it comes to changing these pieces and making them speak differently.
You'll have to just listen to this to understand exactly what I'm saying.
Definitely don't miss out because, once again, this is something that speaks volumes for how people interpret music and how they're able to put those pieces back out there, filtered through their own mind and ears.
Dig into this one because it's pretty special.
Comments