Review Summary: For those looking for seemingly endless layers and substance in their instrumental hip-hop, this is an excellent record and one of the most original releases of the year.
I find it interesting how just being at a different place in your life can affect how much a genre interests you. Hip-hop was something that was enjoyable to me as a teenager, but it was very much a surface-level enjoyment of the classics and the current artists that were getting major airplay on the radio. The interest slowly waned as metal, hardcore, and finally post rock entered my life in a big way. Ambient followed post rock, and my patience for colossal and slow-paced auditory adventures grew exponentially. This foray into a type of music that is generally dense and not easy listening (by any stretch) eventually led me back to also listening to genres that were a bit more immediate to even things out a bit. It came full-circle back to hip-hop, but also marked my first experiences with instrumental hip-hop. Lyrical content is hard to replace when the beats are generally designed to be spoken and sung over, but it also opens up the music to allow more subtleties and experimentation into the mix.
General's Quarters provides the listener with a combination of near-perfect blend of haunting samples and other little eccentricities to keep a 14 track instrumental album not just interesting but quite enjoyable.
The spacey beats that Mr. Muddle employs are often slower, but they are kept dynamic by skittering, head-bobbing hi-hats. "Tired of Dreaming" melds the aforementioned beat with a sample of an old-timey lounge singer and the swell of an orchestra. This formula is generally what can be expected throughout the entirety of the album, but it is done to different degrees and with so much variation that each track is a wholly different listening experience. The melancholy vibe of "Stay, Forever" is among the best of
General's Quarters due to the female vocal sample pushed in the background accompanied by an eerie keyboard piece. The harder and more traditional beat of the following track, entitled "Mobile Infantry", shows how deftly Mr. Muddle mixes in dreamy atmosphere to make even simplistic rhythms more complex and layered. The playful "Kompressor" shows how out-of-the-box the creativity is here while being able to keep with the continuity of the sound on the album. This in and of itself is likely the most impressive talent displayed; the ability to keep the album cohesive while still experimenting within the confines of the genre is expressed in every track. The alien-like droning synths featured in "Don't Trust the Colonel" should make the song stick out like a sore thumb, but it fits very nicely in between the pensiveness of "Dance Gently" and the innocuous singing sample of "Fembot in a Military Detention...". Simply put, there is an undeniable dreamy feeling to the entire end product that is both intentional and unique.
What Mr. Muddle has been able to do with
General's Quarters is quite the feat. He has taken a generally repetitious genre and not only made it interesting, but he has also been able to infuse a signature style that will undoubtedly attract listeners that may not be into hip-hop at large. Some might have trouble with the slow pacing of some tracks, but this is most certainly an album that was meant to be listened to in headphones in a darkened room, and not really to be blasted at a club. My fifteen year-old self would have a hard time getting behind this record, but for those looking for seemingly endless layers and substance in their instrumental hip-hop this is an excellent record and one of the most original releases of the year.
