Ceschi – Broken Bone Ballads LP (Fake Four Inc.) 2015
^Threadworthy post that is long overdue...
Fellow CDC member and deep digger Kepler2323 has been making beats for years now. Recently
(2 months ago) this album by Ceschi was issued on Cloudy Clear vinyl limited to 500 pieces, and our man Kep dropped the beats for this.
I always try to support any of the members here by buying their music whenever I can. I think that it’s one of the coolest things about being a part of this forum is to get this kind of first-hand personal exposure to artists’ work, so I pre-ordered it from
Undergroundhiphop.com and got it shipped promptly on release day a while back.
After about 8-10 listens now in the past two months I kept nagging myself to review this, because the production on this is exceptional, and Kep deserves props for his beatsmithing. Honestly, personally I think this
isn’t straight up Hip Hop, I think it falls into the rock category since it’s so melodic, and even though Ceshi raps on this he also sings so I can’t really put this into a box like that. The basic underlying beats are straight up Hip Hop but the songs overall are not, so like Beck’s work with
“Where it’s At”, while it’s a nod to Hip Hop, I personally keep this in my rock section.
Anyway, I’ll start out and say this isn’t really
normally my type of music, not that I am normal or even know what normal is. It’s pretty rich and advanced in a lot of ways, and I really don’t think I got it on the first listen. Like a lot of my go-to albums, I didn’t dislike it, it just wasn’t what I expected. It’s pretty abstract in terms of Hip Hop rhymes, not normally what I’d seek out when buying music. I don’t dislike Sage Francis who appears on one song on this album, but I don’t go looking for his stuff since his style of rapping isn’t really the kind of rap I usually buy. That said, like many of my favorite albums that threw me a curve ball, this quickly grew on me.
After multiple listens I got it, and even found myself singing along to some of the hooks, which is a
better-late-than-never indication of me finally starting to get the point of this album.
It’s one of those albums that is compiled perfectly, a series of arranged songs that slowly build to a nice climax on the flipside near the last 3 tracks. I liked the Sage Francis collaboration (the last track) it worked perfectly.
The music, like I said, can’t be put into a box, so I can’t compare it to other albums or artists without misleading people. But I can tell you the lyrics are smart, funny, and some of Ceschi’s
sing-songy style of rapping works well with the tracks Kep laid down. His rhymes about “spare change signs” and “Thundercat’s snarf jokes” frankly speak directly to my generation.
Soon they build into deep romantic laid-back ballads about
“100 dragonflies” in Summertime. Then it builds back up into catchy tunes of deeply introspective observations of
too-little-too-late unrealized goals
“Rowing in Circles” and
“Barely Alive.” The irony of it is, of course, here is the song, eloquently articulated self-actualization, so really, quite the opposite happened... it was mission accomplished.
Kep, I should have reviewed this sooner, but I had to wake up. Now I get it, so this was the right time to do this. I seriously can’t wait to hear more of your productions in the future and I for one am glad to have your deep digging insight around here, you got a knack for this and you gotta keep doing this, clearly you love it, it’s obvious.
Sometimes I wish we had the resources around here to actually press some limited runs of records for fellow collectors, not to make money, just to break even, for the love of it. That is a back-burner pipe dream of mine in a way, but if we ever did, I'd love to have your music featured. We are a long way from that kind of budget, so maybe I'm overstepping by saying so or insinuating you'd even want to, but I love that sound and I'd be honored to represent it any way I can.
Anyway, back to reality... Right here, right now...
This Limited Edition vinyl record is still for sale and track snippets can be previewed at
UGHH.com, it’s also at
Discogs, and it’s available in digital download directly from Cechi at his
Bandcamp store.
Please support your fellow crate diggers, in this case especially, you won’t be sorry that you did.
“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
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