We’re a decade and a half past Wu-Tang Forever and the novelty of pitching up soul and R&B samples has long lost its novelty. You would have thought that Kanye and Burial would have pushed it towards the vanishing point — when every chipmunk chop no longer has any emotional resonance. You would have been wrong. Whether it’s the soul-trap flips of Chicago’s Tree or SF-based Giraffage, the technique can always be deadly with the right talons.
Giraffage is 21-year old, Charlie Yin, newly signed to Alpha Pup, whose style seems very much of its time. There’s the champagne effervescence of Baths and the twinkling 10000-watt chandelier glow of Teebs. It’s not dissimilar to Wedidit scion Shlomo nor the early remixes of Hudson Mohawke and Scotland’s Lucky Me contingent. But “Close 2 Me,” Yin’s first single from a forthcoming mixtape, carves out his own lane within a crowded sound. Said lane is narrow but well insulated — gentle hi-hats that run against the skittering heaviness of trap, the seraphic rodent voice cooing the chorus, sparse but affecting keys, the slowed-down coda. You would never know that this was the original. It sounds like it’s been coated in bubbles, bright and with a sense of cleansing. The sort of song that could either soundtrack found or forgotten love. Versatility.
The track is below the jump, along with a litany of songs that he’s made available for free over the last year.
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