Entertaining Listen!
by
ATLien7
Among the massive landscape of genres, sub-genres, and many, many small time DJs, Rob Threezy truly is an up and coming star within the community of DJs and producers of electronic music. Threezy hails from Chicago and his unique style blends elements of many genres of electronic music such as Baltimore club, dub, rave, house, and electronica music. While Threezy remains signed to a small label and is not a heavyweight among DJs, his track “The Chase” garnered acclaimed and essentially put him on the map within the Chicago house sound. Despite no previous experience with these genres, I found Threezy’s latest release, “The Change Up” an entertaining listen that surely showcases his talent for rhythm, beats, and energetic tracks.
“The Change Up” is a short album, comprised of only four tracks, and opens with a track of the album’s name. The opening track is truly defined by the powerful, driving bass sounds and the mix of high hats over top. Threezy has created many interesting sounds and textures, as this song is not built on samples. The rhythms are highly syncopated and are well developed given the many layers of the track. The song is entertaining, features a pulsating build up sequence towards the middle, but over the course of the 4 and a half minutes it becomes somewhat repetitive.
For some unknown reason, I think iTunes made a mistake when I downloaded the album since the second song on the album, “Dark Night”, sounds exactly the same as “The Change Up.” The third track, “Jingle Jams” is much more vibrant than the opening track and is quite enjoyable. The track has an awesome feel, as it employs heavy, old school “808s” type beats and mixes newer sounds more familiar to contemporary electronic music. The track features a fantastic build up towards the middle that leads straight into a synthesizer section that soars over a highly syncopated mixture of snares and high hats. There is an amazing amount of variety to the peripheral sounds that build the many layers and overall texture of the track.
While “Jingle Jams” is great, by far and away the best track on the album is “You Bad.” Threezy’s composition sizzles with an excellent combination of sounds that build the main framework of the song, but he also incorporates well-selected samples that contribute the pulsating energy of the track. The samples include a police siren, Lil’ Jon the rapper, and a gunshot. The track has fantastic layers of sound, rhythm, and synthesizers and really shows Threezy’s potential and enormous talent. “You Bad” is an awesome high-energy track that is fun to listen to and probably the only track on the album that I, as someone who doesn’t listen to this type of music often, might listen to again.
While I cannot speak with certainty, I think Threezy primarily uses a sample pad, turntables, a synthesizer, and a computer to craft his music. Threezy has rich connections to the history and tradition of electronic music. While Threezy both develops sounds and employs samples, I think he definitely connected to the tradition of creating sounds, the origins of which lie in the electronische muzik tradition. Also, the development of MIDI is essential for an artist like Threezy as he operates many devices to produce one output and the ability for the devices to communicate with one another is paramount. Without MIDI Threezy’s music would simply not be possible. Threezy’s synthesizer parts and other sounds come from sources that were surely influenced by the Yamaha DX-7, and landmark piece of equipment in terms of the variety of sounds it could produce. Also, after listening to “The Change Up” it is easily apparent that Threezy uses frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, and a variety of echoes to create a diverse collection of sounds, out of which he builds music that is quite enjoyable.
Although for the most part I am an outsider to this genre of music, I enjoyed listening to “The Change Up” mostly because of “Jingle Jams” and “You Bad.” Threezy’s talent shimmers in the energy and heavy rhythms of his music and I would recommend giving the “The Catch Up” a listen. It’s fun, dynamic, and displays the amazingly creative mind of a young, up and coming talent.
