Send "Oh No " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 When you recontextualize other people's music, it's not enough that your sources fit a certain aesthetic sweet spot-- you have to do something transformative enough with those sources that it brings out new aspects in both their music and your own. The best producers and beat collectives could do this seemingly at will, get listeners simultaneously considering the inner musical workings of both the Bomb Squad and James Brown, RZA and Willie Mitchell, Basement Jaxx and Gary Numan. Like his older brother Madlib, Oh No seems as fascinated with the notion of picking a specific palette to work from as he is with advancing his own style, having previously done so with albums based on thematic source material like stage-and-screen composer Galt MacDermot (Exodus into Unheard Rhythms) and Middle Eastern/Mediterranean psychedelic rock (Dr. No's Oxperiment). But if Oh No's style isn't drastically different than that of his famously out-there brother, it's still a recognizably consistent and characteristic one, no matter what he feeds into his sampler.Dr. No's Ethiopium is the next in his string of dedicated-source concept records, and it's the kind of thing you'd think would have been done a long time ago. Drawing off Ethiopian music of the 1960s and 70s, especially since the Ethiopiques series rose to prominence, would fit the more adventurous styles of hip-hop production to a T, and the region's recognizable but culturally unique permutations of American jazz, funk, and folk music traditions (and the precursors thereof) would make for some accessibly exotic beats. That it was Oh No who came around to it is fortunate; the man has professed to be the kind of producer who's always willing to find a way to make beats out of anything, and his track record's revealed that M.O. to work out well for him. (He did have two of the best beats on The Ecstatic, in any case.) Ethiopium-- a top-notch genre name if there ever was one-- rests on the ability of Oh No's alchemy to preserve just enough of the original sound to make its origins recognizable, but still finds a way to whittle it down to shards and fit it to his own, differently-angled approach. The songs themselves are shreds of music in themselves, 36 tracks at two minutes or less, in the now-familiar structure of typical Stones Throw beat-tape concoctions. They're odd little see-sawing loops and stagger-step blasts assembled from thickly-stitched scraps of brass sections and chiming guitars and wailing vocals, all truncated into little bursts of disembodied, attention-grabbing remnants. Sometimes the rhythms feel built around the loops, like the sharply plucked notes (possibly from a lyre-style krar) that choppily bob along with "Madness"' bounce. Other times, he lets the original rhythms play out for a bit like he does at the beginning of "Problematic", only to yank the rug out from under it and mold it into a new, more boom-bap-friendly cadence. And there are tracks where he just uses these loops and snippets like almost diversionary flourishes, garnishing tracks like "Drive By" and "Midnight Missions" with scattered Ethiopian ambiance....full text |
| Mog |
| Oh No is prepping the follow up to his Turkish & Lebanese Psyche sampled Dr. No’s Oxperiment w/ Dr. No’s Ethiopium. A project that will feature all Ethiopian samples (as if the title didn’t give that away) and will drop on StonesThrow this month. Here goes some snippets…DOWNLOAD: Oh No - Dr. No’s Ethiopium...full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| In a unique twist on business diversification, Stones Throw has, in partnership with Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee, introduced a line of specialty coffee beans in tandem with some of the standout artists in their catalog. In doing so, the label has deployed what is either a quietly clever gimmick to add some (ahem) buzz to their eclectic new releases, or a cleverly loud FUCK YOU to non-music companies like Starbucks, which have only muddied the water by releasing watered-down folk music and resurrecting the careers of artists past their prime. The latest pairing is an Ethiopian coffee with the new beats-only collection Dr. No’s Ethiopium by the label’s defacto house producer, Oh No. Perhaps in specific deference, the coffee to be released in association with the record consists of Ethiopian yirgacheffe: it’s rich, with notes of honeysuckle and jasmine, with a clean finish of spice and cocoa; it’s Ethiopian; it’s not cheap; and, it’s ‘single origin,’ as opposed to a hodgepodge of beans from different regional farms. Oddly enough, this description dovetails nicely with Oh No’s outing on Ethiopium. It’s rich; despite the fact that the cuts are short and sweet, each represents any number of possibilities for repurposing and restyling. It’s Ethiopian: anyone who has listened intently to the voluminous Ethiopiques series will notice the scales, the rapturous nasal wails, the chugging funk of the rhythm sections. It’s single origin: there is very little non-Ethiopian debris in this bin, and the needle drops and dusty din are consistent from beginning to end....full text |
Oh No lyrics
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