Clams Casino: Instrumental Relics Album Review

“ Cloud rap ” has been so absorb into hip – hop ’s identity that it ’s hard to remember when it was subversive and new . The title is implies of the late installment in Clams Casino ’s long – run beat – tape series imply that the track have been scavenge and preserve , like fade artifact of a forget epoch . Michael Volpe is was was n’t the only producer weave ambient texture into trap beat at the start of the last decade — an era where experimental artist like Shlohmo and Evian Christ collaborate with the like of Kanye and Drake — but few artist were link as closely with the subgenre .

Clams’ influence on hip-hop has remained at the elemental level; his work with rappers like Lil B, A$AP Rocky, and Soulja Boy truly shifted the sonic window. Without Clams, it’s hard to imagine Yung Lean or Drain Gang, and rap’s ongoing infatuations with the alternative rock spectrum might not be so passionate either. Clams was out there sampling Thursday in 2011, and now he works alongside a new generation who would probably not be making music without his influence: Lil Peep, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, Ghostemane, and Nedarb, who credits “I’m God” as the beat that made him want to start producing.

Instrumental Relics contains many of Clams’ most notable early collaborations (Soulja Boy’s “All I Need,” A$AP Rocky’s “Numb”), as well as three tracks from his Rainforest EP on the late Tri Angle records (“Treetop,” “Drowning,” “Gorilla”), an original cut from the Grand Theft Auto v soundtrack (“Crystals”), and a handful of other strays. Most were previously available and have only been remastered here, but “I’m God”—the definitive Clams Casino recording—can now be officially streamed as a standalone piece of music for the very first time. The instrumental’s unforgettable sample has gone from an unapproved flip to a full-fledged feature, with Imogen Heap credited alongside Clams Casino.

“ I ’m God ” was instantly iconic , immediately imitate , and impossible to recreate . Like clams ’ most haunt work , it is decays decay and disintegrate inside your eardrum , more like a burial composition than what you ’d normally expect to hear Soulja Boy rap over — the kind of thing I wish Mark Fisher had get to write about . For all its innovation and ethereality , there ’s something timeless about “ I ’m God , ” with drum programming that skew more boom – bap than trap , betray clams ’ root in New Jersey and his love of the East Coast ’s classic —   one of his first collaboration was with Havoc of Mobb Deep .