{"id":15570,"date":"2018-11-28T05:30:27","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T10:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15570"},"modified":"2018-11-12T12:39:24","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T17:39:24","slug":"ep-review-spaceman-jones-and-the-motherships-space-and-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/28\/ep-review-spaceman-jones-and-the-motherships-space-and-time\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review: Spaceman Jones and The Motherships — Space and Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The creative collaboration between Asheville rapper Spaceman Jones and genre-defying outfit RBTS WIN continues to bear fruit. Their first recorded project together was 2017\u2019s RBTS WIN Presents Spaceman Jones and The Motherships<\/i>. That 11-track set drew from funk and soul, with Jones rapping fluidly over deep-groove, sample-heavy musical backing. The music was as interesting and compelling as the streetwise, NSFW rhymes; together, the mix was hypnotically alluring. Spaceman Jones displayed a facility to deliver a wide palette of textures in his rhyming; each was suited perfectly to its subject matter, and Jones wisely avoided the hip-hop trope of over-reliance on self-referential boasting; even \u201cSoup and Cold Cuts\u201d displayed restraint on that score.<\/p>\n

In March of this year, the team returned with Vol. 2<\/i>, a full-length that followed its predecessor\u2019s strategy of building a bed of mesmerizing sampled loops while leaving plenty of room for Spaceman Jones to lay his rapping flow on top of it. Sonically the disc has echoes of Ice T-s 1991 classic OG: Original Gangster<\/i>, but The Mothership places greater emphasis on a soothing, rubbery sonic bed. That bed is so appealing that an \u201cinstrumental\u201d edit of the album would be an engaging listen. The music draws from slow-jam soul and funk of the 1970s, and while the loops aren\u2019t identified, there are strong hints of Stax-style samples all over Vol. 2<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Demonstrably, Spaceman Jones and The Motherships have no shortage of new material. This fall marks the release of a new EP, Space and Time<\/i>; its release is the third in just over a year. And unlike some EPs, Space and Time<\/i> doesn\u2019t feel like a quick compilation of leftovers designed to buy time while the next full-length is developed. Each of its four cuts is the equal in quality and nuance to the best of what has come before.<\/p>\n

\u201cHenny Nights\u201d is built upon a bed of soaring, sweeping strings that sound as if they were sampled off a Barry White or Isaac Hayes LP. And in addition to Jones\u2019 articulate and impassioned (but still thoroughly NSFW) rapping, the track showcases some sultry singing. The beats are deep, but they never overwhelm Jones\u2019 vocal turns. The tune \u2013 with a title possibly paying tribute to a popular brand of cognac \u2013 is very much in line with trip-hop\/downtempo music of the 1990s and early \u201800s, evoking warm memories of the best work from acts like Zero 7 and Massive Attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cReturn to the Mental\u201d continues with an even more laid-back chillwave vibe. A saxophone-centered backing track gives the piece a video-montage feel, evoking mental images of a nighttime drive down a sparsely-populated boulevard. Jones\u2019 verses sketch out a dark, subtly sinister scene, but \u2013 oddly enough \u2013 they mesh seamlessly with the sexy, romantic instrumental bed. And as with the first tune, harmony vocals figure prominently in the arrangement, serving a kind of Greek chorus counterpoint to Jones\u2019 raps. The repetitive nature of the backing is a feature, not a bug.<\/p>\n

\u201cS Class Benz\u201d suffers \u2013 if only slightly \u2013 from too-familiar subject matter. But once again, Jones\u2019 rapping is irresistible in its delivery, and the superb backing envelops the vocals without overwhelming. Even though the music is sample-based, it feels very much as if an actual group \u2013 one along the conceptual lines of Jagga Jazzist \u2013 is playing behind Jones.<\/p>\n

The EP concludes with the title track. \u201cSpace and Time\u201d largely follows the successful approach of the three previous tunes, but this time the backing track features some gently picked Spanish guitar; a repeating melodic line undulates both during Jones\u2019 rap sections and the smooth harmony-sung parts. Jones\u2019 rhymes alternate between observations about the present and hope for the future. When the vocals conclude, the tune fades away gently, with some clattering percussion taking the place of voices.<\/p>\n

The whole thing is over in just over 15 minutes, but Spaceman Jones and The Motherships make the best possible use of time (and space) on Space and Time<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The creative collaboration between Asheville rapper Spaceman Jones and genre-defying outfit RBTS WIN continues to bear fruit. Their first recorded project together was 2017\u2019s RBTS WIN Presents Spaceman Jones and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,49,65,72],"tags":[3245,3624],"class_list":["post-15570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hip-hop","category-new-release","category-review","category-trip-hop","tag-rbts-win","tag-spaceman-jones","cat-36-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","cat-72-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15571,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15570\/revisions\/15571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}