Product Description

1st full length from Cali downtempo producer who's only hinted at the greatness he's about to bestow upon you. A full range of sounds, moods, & atmospheres. All the digital complexity of IDM, plus warmth & emotional resonance you can take

Track Listing

1. Overture - Featuring Chicken George
2. Black Space & Tangerines
3. Monopoly Money - Featuring Colourform
4. Tuesday Never Comes
5. In Back
6. Slouched Over Remix - Featuring Jorge Verdin
7. Walk Away - Featuring Gaby Hernandez
8. Thinking Of Courtney - Featuring Caural
9. Northbound
10. Man Plays Dirty
11. Dream Suite - Featuring Dutch Massive
12. Golden Gate Reflections
13. Intersections
14. The Trouble With Libras
15. You High
16. Stepping Over Buildings
17. Through The Air
18. Los Angeles Is Outside - Featuring Beth Grisa , Gaby Hernandez, Caural

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #369956 in Music
• Released on: 2007-09-11
• Number of discs: 1

Review
Constantly reinventing and expanding on his cinematic sound, Los Angeles based TAKE (aka Thomas Wilson) creates jazzy melodies using anything from live instruments to kitchen utensils. TAKE's motto: "If it sounds right, use it!!!." Earthtones and Concrete, his debut solo full-length, is very indicative of where Los Angeles is at right now, in attitude and feel. Garth Trinidad from Chocolate City on KCRW explains that it's "Hip Hop music for meditation." The album opens up with Chicken George stating that "it's good to be free man, it's good to be in LA." TAKE mixes up what feels like a musical interpretation of the city with track titles like "Intersections," "Stepping Over Buildings" and "Los Angeles is Outside." It's an honest effort to the get to the core of a city that arguably doesn't have a center. The stand-out track is "Dream Suite" featuring Ditch Massive. With its steady beat and excellent MC-stylings, it's a smooth lounge track with an edge to keep the mellowed out party going strong. If French duo Air was a hip-hop collaboration it would sound like TAKE. Look out for his soundtracks to two New Line Cinema films in the next year. Cinematic indeed. --Urb Magazine

Review
Walking a fine line between hip-hop and electronica, Take (aka Thomas Wilson), has impressed the Los Angeles scene with a series of excellent EPs, remixes, and innovative DJ sets. Now he's finally moved up to a full-length with his debut Earthtones & Concrete, an intricate set that's highly experimental, but thoroughly enjoyable. Take's music has always been difficult to categorize or qualify, and this album no less so, as Wilson embarks on a musical journey comprised of instrumentals, brief interludes, and a few vocal numbers spun across 18 tracks. The atmosphere is relaxed, although the rhythms are invariably off-kilter; on the spacy "Black Space & Tangerines" they virtually stutter. Elsewhere they pause to consider their effect, as with "Monopoly Money," whose funky bassline counterpoints the pretty organ line above. "Stepping Over Buildings" is even more down and dirty, pushing straight towards the dancefloor, but there's a splendid robotic feel to it all -- P-Funk puppet theater perhaps. In which case, "Slouched Over RMX" is the soundtrack for a hip, animatrix dinosaur sliding on down a swampy electric avenue. "You High" boasts a rubber bassline worthy of Bootsy Collins, while the interlude "In Back" features a slick, techno sound that instantly recalls any techno club on the Med, you can even hear the waves splashing in the background. And Wilson loves to play with sounds and effects, from the police radio that broadcasts across "The Trouble with Libras" to the wah wah effect that unexpectedly erupts on "Tuesday Never Comes." That latter number is made up of so many sound fragments it's much like picking through broken glass. But Take is an expert at taking shards of sound and making them whole, and although the breaks are still apparent, that's deliberate, giving the set its slightly askew feel, even on the heavenly "Los Angeles Is Outside," the most lavish of set's tracks. Like LA itself, there's no true center to Take's sound, but still the city of angels solidifies around its fragmented neighborhoods, and diverse peoples and cultures, as Earthtones & Concretes folds around the beats and bass, samples and synths, vocals and raps. Chillout hip-hop for the discerning urban masses. ~ Jo-Ann Greene, All Music Guide --All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

If you like FlyLo...
The only real similarities between Flying Lotus and Take are the fact that they both experiment with hip-hop and jazz. Take has made a masterpiece of his own. He creates amazingly smoked out soundscapes. If you were to blast off into the future and land at your favorite jazz spot, this is what would be bumping. Other artists in this indescribable genre are Dr.WhoDat? Hudson Mohawke, Daddy Kev, Gaslamp Killer, and Samiyam. Basically any artist performing at Low End Theory in LA. Keep an eye out for a mix Take put together called Levitations.