The Liquid Swords instrumentals are providing the soundtrack to my sorrow at watching Roy Halladay destroy the Cincinnati Reds like a Afghani-built bomb embedded in a cork of champagne. I found this floating around the Internet last week and have been meaning to post it ever since. Many moons ago, I wrote a 1,200 word LA Weekly feature waxing semi-philosophical about why the GZA’s sophomore record is the purest distillation of the Wu sound. With winter prematurely figure-four locking Los Angeles, RZA’s beats fulfill their goal–this is shiver in your car music. The 15 year anniversary of this record arrives next month, and with mixtapes allowing for unfettered and unprecedented copyright infringement, it’s a testament to its brilliance that not a single rapper has since managed to craft anything this cinematic.
GZA offered axioms and the best similes ever written (“weak like clock radio speakers,” “feminine like sandals”), while RZA figured out how to instantiate the sound of a brain being infected by devils. The answer was Willie Mitchell, Ann Peebles, Shogun Assassin, creaking hinges, and drums that sound they were dredged from an abyss. To his credit, they stand unadorned on their own two. And for those with antiquarian inclinations, I’m posting the sample material courtesy of Hip Hop is Read. Ideal for those who are in the mood to palliate their sorrows by sipping rum out of Stanley Cups. –Weiss
Download:
ZIP: GZA-Liquid Swords Instrumentals
ZIP: V/A- Liquid Swords [Sample Set]
7 comments
smallpro says:
October 6, 2010 at 5:34 pm (UTC -7)
that article on liquid swords was simply masterful.
hl says:
October 6, 2010 at 6:37 pm (UTC -7)
So deep, it’s picked up on radios in tunnels.
Tray says:
October 6, 2010 at 10:28 pm (UTC -7)
I think you’re entirely right that Liquid Swords is the purest distillation of the Wu-Tang sound; with that said, that’s probably the reason it used to be my favorite Wu-Tang album when I was in high school and why it ceased to be my favorite, in favor of Cuban Linx, long ago. It’s an incredibly insular, clinical album that sounds like nothing else from its time, either musically or in the way GZA raps, like Kool G Rap gone Five Percenter monk. Like you say in the article, it does talk about actual life in the projects much more than one tends to remember, but in a way that somehow feels like he might as well be talking about an alien planet. It’s a virtually perfect album, I know most every word of it and like it very much, but ultimately I prefer Cuban Linx because it’s an album much more in dialogue with rap of that time, with life, with Wallabees… and it’s an album with much more to say. Whereas Liquid Swords is all ‘Cold World,’ all that one mood.
Disco Vietnam says:
October 6, 2010 at 11:49 pm (UTC -7)
i just want the “Unexplained” instrumental. it’s never gonna happen
Sach says:
October 7, 2010 at 8:17 am (UTC -7)
One of the elements that strikes me the most about Liquid Swords is how closely it can be tied to the Cold Chillin aesthetic if you scratch beneath the surface (no Gza pun intended). At it’s core, it’s a look back at the height of the 88 crack era through battle raps and storytelling but thanks to Rza’s beats, there’s virtually zero nostalgia and everything is depicted as surreal horror or grim hyper-realism.
Victor says:
October 7, 2010 at 12:43 pm (UTC -7)
“His glock clicks like high heeled shoes on parquade floors..”
I agree with Tray on this though. It’s incredibly tight and Liquid Swords is probably executed a tad more mastefully but I just prefer OB4CL cos of the range of vibes that it exudes. It’s moot though, both are among the greatest albums of the last 30 years, easily.
Wolfbitch says:
October 8, 2010 at 3:05 pm (UTC -7)
You gotta listen to Wu either blasting or in headphones. No one has yet to touch these guys lyrical, musical, and critically.