"Listening to music while stoned is a whole new world...most heads consider it's importance second only to sex." Such an intro can only mean one thing: DJ Vadim, one of hip hop's hottest humorists and the finest b-boy collagist in town, is back. - with a vengeance.
Fresh from producing Spanish hip hop supergroup 7 Notas 7 Colorez, Russia's finest brings his third solo long player, though 'solo' always seems like a contradition in terms for an active collaborationist like Vadim.
Indeed, his latest missive is once again packed to the rafters with a wealth of talent from all over the world, names that range from the fresh to the famous (Babu, Moshun Man, Blu Rum, Vakill, Gift Of The Gab, Kila Kela, Ulzula Dudziak, Yarah Bravo, DJ Plus One, Demolition Man, Task Force, Mr Thing, TTC, Revd Clevie Brown and Slug) and whom Vadim has carefully hand-picked to produce a rainbow of styles and flavours.
Vadim has always consistently eschewed fickle fashion and temporary trends for his own idiosyncratic vision, and on 'The Art Of LIstening' he continues in the same enthralling vein. This higgledy piggledy posse of poets, vocalists, MCs, scratch DJs, producers (that's right, even a Reverend) might be at the forefront of the show but this experience is also very much about picking out Vadim's odds and ends of sounds - his hip haberdashery of spoken word samples, shakers, creaks, horns, groans, wails, song, strings, poetry, bullets, radio skits, crackles, pops, rewinds and scratches.
His skewed approach lends an intoxcated, rambling feel to the LP, an 'ambience' which is enhanced by long, attention-grabbing pauses on the choruses of tracks like 'Combustible', 'Till Suns In Your Eyes' and 'L'art d'Ecouter' (with TTC), and by the deep, swirling under-currents of dubbed out soul and spaced out jazz that infuse everything.
As usual, Vadim has paid attention to every miniscule detail, inventing an intricate and intriguing micro-world that functions beneath the main veil and which is certainly more accesible after some herbal insight.
Whether it's Kela's voice music merging mellifluously with the playing of legendary Polish saxaphonist Dudziak, the weed-fuelled exoticalia of 'The Harp Song' or the combination of Ade Soma and Gruff on the sleazy spirituality of 'Too Fun Aiya', the combinations of sounds on 'The Art Of Listening' are tremendously engaging and devilishly different.
Listen up - and listen up good.
