Korgy & Bass at the Skype Live Studio in 2017—click to read about their collaborative set with emcee Rasheed Jamal and see more photos by Bennett DewanNot quite jazz but not quite hip-hop either, Korgy & Bass have been steadily forging their own, sample-based path. A creative collaboration between drummer and composer Barra Brown and bassist and beat maker Alex Meltzer, the pair took hours of improvisation, chopped it up into 14 tracks, and dropped a beat tape in October via Cavity Search Records. 26000:4=2500 is the duo's third release with the label but is actually just side A, with the second side on its way. Ranging in length from 30 seconds to just under two minutes, the 14 snippets are futuristic and primarily come from several synths (OP-1, Organelle and their namesake microKORG) and an Akai MPC1000 drum machine.
"We did all the recording in a session or two at my house, no guests, no other instruments," Brown tells. "Side A is more experimental" and so are the creepy, oddball, Busta Rhymes- and Missy Elliott-esque camera angles and visuals that Brown envisioned pairing with the tape's final track.
Korgy & Bass' side A, '26000:4=2500,' is out now via Cavity Search Records but you can celebrate the release of side B at Mississippi Pizza on March 15"I started seeing surrealist doll imagery with the simple choreography you see in the video after hearing the finished track of 'The Toy Is Not The Piano.' I've been more and more interested in video and design work lately, and because I had such strong imagery in my head after listening to that song, I wanted to try my hand at costume design, choreography (I used to be a dancer myself), directing, shooting and editing a music video for Korgy & Bass. I created all the headpieces and rallied friends together for a shoot! This was all shot on an iPhone with Moment lenses."
As for the impending side B, "we wanted to use real drums and arrange beats over those," Brown explains. "We recorded all the drums at Alex's house using two mics and a seven-inch reel-to-reel tape machine. We've been getting really awesome drums sounds with variations on that set up. We did a lot of tracking before I left for two months, but Alex really dug into arranging and producing while I was gone, and the result is excellent. We were able to get some friends on side B as well. On 'Beauty Marx,' you'll hear GLASYS on keys, Cyrus Nabipoor on trumpet (he sent us stems from NOLA where he lives), and Milo Fultz on bass. On 'Smuh Smah' and 'Call Me Lazy,' I chopped up vocal samples from Abbey Hendrix's solo album You, Sir, which was recorded and produced by Adam Brock in L.A. Abbey, Adam and I all used to play in Old Wave together."
"Side B will be released on Cavity Search Records digitally on March 1," Brown says. "We will then have a physical tape release (the tape will have both sides on it) on March 15 at Mississippi Pizza. In the meantime, we are finishing a remix for Fresh Selects' artist Hosannas that we are stoked about and we will be focusing the next two months on finishing our full-length! Lots of features appearing on that already."
