Review: Nicknack

nickn
Nicknack
“Improving Silence”
(Crowd Control)

I’m not a friend of silence. While some may say it’s golden, I find discomfort in just hearing the breeze, or the faint hum of traffic. Nicknack doesn’t really make silence that much better. In fact, I’ll take this instrumental piece, “Improving Silence” over real silence any day. Some producers clog their albums with layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of ambient rubbish, in order to make some breath taking Electro Ultra-Composition, whereas Nicknack frees up the space with sparse drum patterns. This leaves the door open for his accompanying musicians to create a smooth, jazzy landscape of bass and horns.

The drums range from following the melody, to completely driving some arrangements, as in my favorite track, “Fighting Facts”. While Disco Rick and I sat down for the initial listen, he commented that the album would be a good listen while you’re getting brains and chiefing a blunt (see Three-Six Mafia review). Nicknack, however, obviously had something else in mind, seeing how the album is dedicated to God. Pretty much for me, smoking weed and doing anything chill go hand in hand with this full length disc of mellow, instrumental Hip-Hop (Yeah I called it Hip-Hop, so what?)