Like most musicians that begin in that boom-bap, beat-tape realm of sound artistry, t o p $ has gone into a new dimension of fuckery. Unlike Ahnnu, Lord $M$, D/P/I, etc., t o p $ progresses the beat-tape genre rather than morphing it into an entirely separate entity. Actually, “chckmyswtchup” is a good example of how you can visualize his process, sorta; transitions akin to **$$EXT8PE, fuzz matched with lee (asano+ryuhei), and incomparable exploration of a psychedelic routine that’s equally dropped-out as it is completely organized and intentional. I remember his Acorn Tapes cassette last year, CORRECT SOUND being so psyched-in at some points that I couldn’t tell between reality and the music.
Then you got Gymnastics jams rocking a day before the “chckmyswtchup” and t o p $ appears to be on the ball. Even the cross-fade between the two musicians on the front cover is another genius element of visually displaying his music. Potentially the rate at which t o p $’s music is birthed could related to the haphazard styling of it, though doesn’t that further create the anti-capitalist measure of the project. I mean, even if the dude is starving and needs money, t o p $ has mastered the modern aesthetic of flip-and-turn, and shit-punks on all them over-produced, high-fi baby mouse clickers thinking they deep while downloading a dub-step sound pack off ThePirateBay.se, only to find out it got hacked by Gymnastics jams, and now all you hear is purity. Feel it below:
• t o p $: https://topskilla.bandcamp.com
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