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Ame One & Nomar Slevik
Stonehenge Diaries
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Never one to let borders or distance prevent a good collaboration from occurring, rapper-producer Nomar Slevik, residing in Freeport, Maine, teams with Hawaiin producer Ame One, currently residing in Osaka, Japan, for this compilation-like project. Both collaborators contribute an equal number of beats for Slevik and his international collective of friends to rap on, but be assured, they’ve learned from the mistakes of the druids – or as Slevik sums it up, “I’ve been stuck in Stonehenge for 15 days, there’s two turntables but no DJs” – so they tap the talent of Berlin, Germany’s DJ Bizkid for that missing magical ingredient. Bizkid cuts up the names of each contributor over an old school beat crossed with ancient school singing on intro track “Salisbury Plain,” and continues his frenzied but precise cuts on following track “Stonehenge Days,” the catchy album highlight on which Nomar Slevik complains of the lack of DJs in Stonehenge. But it’s not just Bizkid’s cuts on both tracks that make for such a natural transition from Slevik’s minimal production on the intro into Ame One’s hype opening track; the soft, jazzy background vocals of “Stonehenge Days” also recall the song-like chants of monks that make up a big part of “Salisbury Plain.” And this is just one example of what makes these two producers such a fine combination. Still, while this may hold true over most of the album, track three, “Slow Down,” another Ame One production, threatens to bring it all to an abrupt halt. Although a well-made beat, the slow tempo, Geneva.b’s singing assist on the hook, and Raystar’s more typical voice and delivery combine to create a typical, uninspired hip hop song. While the album officially ends with a wicked, old school-referencing posse cut in “Megaliths,” featuring Slevik, Raystar and Id Obelus, it finally finishes with a couple of bonus remixes and an instrumental. Uptempo and experimental, with a variety of creative ideas and flows, Stonehenge Diaries is a very worthwhile listen for adventurous hip hop fans. [Thomas Quinlan]
SIQ Records
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