Dday One: Loop Extensions-Deluxe
Content (L)abel

If Dday One's Loop Extensions-Deluxe sounds a tad familiar to long-time devotees of the crate-diggin' turntablist and sampler, it should: the album's first iteration appeared in 2005 (on CD on Needlework and vinyl on Content (L)abel). The new version now supplements the original's cuts with remixes by Glen Porter, 2econd Class Citizen, Inner Science, David Vangel, Long Arm, and 2tall, and throws in an alternate take (“Sea Change”) and original demo (“Unstable Material Instrumental”) to boost its drawing power. With the original release's 500 copies having long disappeared, now's as good a time as any to resurrect this enhanced debut outing from LA-based producer Udeze Ukwuoma. Throughout the collection, Dday works a wealth of found sounds—sirens, birds, street noise, and voices—into his pieces, and spices them up with dusty acoustic jazz samples, turntable scratching, and crackling beats.

You know you're in for instrumental hip-hop and boom-bap of the first order when the opening cut “If Eyes Were Ears” rolls out its groaning acoustic bass lines and head-nodding slam. Dday's trademark beatsmithing animates the folk-inflected leanings (acoustic guitars, “la-la-la” vocals) of “Distant Memory” with a powerful sense of propulsion. “Mixing Paint” weaves introductory interview snippets involving an abstract painter into a heady, loop-based flow of saxophones, drums, turntable cuts, and voices, and Dday's jazzier side comes to the fore during “Seeds of Revolution” when a fluttering saxophone line coils itself around the acoustic bass throb and when wailing saxes (soprano and tenor by the sound of it) spread themselves across “Nigerian Soil.” “Unstable Material 2” couples the catapulting flow of an MC quartet (Existereo, Subtitle, Awol One, Metfly) with the bounce of electro-beats, while the beats hit so ridiculously hard during “MC's On Strike” (with its head-spinning verbal collage) you'll feel like your neck muscles might very well snap.

The remixes are certainly decent enough, even if some don't radically stray from Dday's originals but more subtly alter their arrangements by adding new details, such as the voiceover by a young boy that 2tall sneaks into his “Distant Memory” treatment. Some tracks do, on the other hand, depart from the originals in newfound ways: Glen Porter (Ryan Stephenson) gives “Dust Ritual” a High Noon-styled makeover that'll have you thinking of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns—until Porter unleashes his trademark mix of beat crunch and electric guitar twang. Long Arm (Project: Mooncircle artist Georgy Kotunov) heads in the opposite direction in his “Seeds of Revolution” remix by smoothening out its rough edges and turning it into something rather urbane and soothing, while Inner Science (Masumi Nishimura) brightens “Sea Change” with tinkling cascades of IDM-styled sparkle—not the first kind of thing that comes to mind when Dday One's name is mentioned.

November 2011