One In An Infinity Of Ways is a riveting slice of instrumental hip-hop and ambient trip-hop, a minimal soul-jazz mix of samples and live instrumentation. Featuring the likes of Daedelus and members of Build An Arc, with vocal appearances by Dwight Trible and Lil' Sci, there's enough funk to get the party started and enough ambience to chill your bong circle flat. At the center of AmmonContact is the Los Angeles duo of Carlos Niño and Fabian Ammon. Friends since high school, the pair now find themselves in the middle of a young group of talented, open minded musicians who have a lot of respect for what hip-hop can be and not what it pays MTV to appear to be. This is, despite the rhythm, about as far from the image-based Neptunes hip-pop as you can get. There are as many levels of subtle nuance at work here as layers on an onion that strips part-time, which, for the vegetable, would mean putting on clothes first but, now that you bring it up, that is a pretty weak attempt at refreshing a cliché metaphor. Sorry. You'll just have to trust me that there is more to their song craft than my comparison shows. These guys aren't just picking samples out of catalogues and shouting their names really loud (DJ Clue?, Funkmaster Flex... you're killing me). These kind of beats lose a lot of intricacy under barrel-chested MCs, though Lil' Sci's showcase track is extremely poignant but busy nevertheless, with the message that hip-hop is only "One In An Infinity Of Ways" to get your message across. We're all in this together and anything we can do from decals to disco helps. If Curtis Mayfield was alive and with it today, this is what he'd be doing.
1. Dreamy
2. Healing Vibrations
3. Infinity Of Rhythm
4. Through The Moon
5. Fun Is For Funky
6. Wu Woomp Woomp
7. Wu Wu Woomp
8. Good Life To Groove Merchant
9. Like Waves Of The Sea
10. Love Letters
11. Ballad Of The Untitled
12. One In An Infinity Of Ways feat. Lil' Sci
More about: AmmonContact
