DZA Dog Beattape Volume 1

It is quite possible that DZA employs slave labour to get his work done. The album offers no less than 37 tracks at a cost of 6 Euro and is the first LP on Sasha Dza's record label 'How2make'. With so many ideas and tracks it is almost impossible to review the album as a whole however I will say it is overall more polished and lovingly sculpted than his previous releases. The chiptune affectations that comprise a prominent strain of the Russian sound (Pixelord, Moa Pillar) and came to the fore in last years impenetrable and unsatisfying 'Supershark' are almost entirely absent. Instead, DZA indulges his infrasonic/wonkified side and does so in such a balanced and considered way that the album is compelling throughout the entire 60 minute duration. That said, it is in no way ground-breaking, in fact no-one would bat an eyelid if it were released on Flying Lotus' 'Brainfeeder' imprint but it is one of the better examples of the schizophrenic, low-attention span, internet-era genre, mashing together disparate samples from games, youtube videos, webcam chats (and more or less anything else you can find on the web) all filtered through a lo-fi soft-focus. Noone in their right mind is gunna just browse through ALL the tracks so for a quick overview I recommend listening to the following: 'final scene', 'curse' and 'wordless'.