It’s rare that shared Facebook ‘likes’ actually provide any kind of insight into whether you’ll like an artist’s music: Megadeth ‘like’ Led Zeppelin, I ‘like’ Led Zeppelin, but I sure don’t ‘like’ Megadeth. Yet, when I checked out Sinthesis’s facebook page, our one shared ‘like’ was revealing: “You and Sinthesis both like Beck“.
This duo have their roots in hip-hop, but they owe more than a little of their sound to the eclectic, sample-heavy music mastered by Beck on “Odelay”. Whether it’s the snappy horns of “Citizen Of Earth”, the funky jazz organ on “Horseshoes And Handgrenades”, or the laid-back, bluesy guitar and harmonica duo of “Poolshark”, you can hear parallels to Beck’s sound everywhere on their six track EP “Killing Time”.
Odelay is 15 years old, so it might be a bit rich for Sinthesis to describe themselves as “a new breed of hip-hop fusion”. But then it’s also been 15 years since anyone taking this approach has sounded so good (hands up anyone who thinks Beck has ever matched the brilliance of “Where It’s At” since 1996. No one? I thought so). Plus, it’s unfair to obsess over the comparison: it’s as much a reflection of Beck’s own debt to rap and hip-hop, and indicates just how diverse and inventive Sinthesis’s sound is.
“Killing Time” comes as a pleasant reminder, from those of us suffering from Tyler the Creator shock, that hip-hop can be easy to love immediately. “Horseshoes And Handgrenades” just about sums it up: they’ll make “clap your hands, stomp your feet, don’t it feel so God-Damn good.” You can download the whole EP below.
