Search - Nobody :: Soulmates

Soulful "Soulmates"

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 02/04/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Elvin Estela, also whimsically known as "Nobody," knows his hip-hop. And his trip-hop. And he knows how to blend them together exquisitely in "Soulmates," his polished debut. It leans a bit too much on the jagged raps, but retains a sort of sleepy eeriness from beginning to end.



At the start, "Soulmates" sounds like a mixture of airy space-rock, bits of acid jazz, and some of the airiest little melodies you could imagine. Nobody's trippy, sleepy songs are delicate and dreamlike, with things like a soprano choir and guitar strums overlaid with blipping samples and tinkling bells. He even dips into experimental numbers with "Nozirah," a completely distorted one-minute song.



But there's another side to "Soulmates," one lined with acid jazz and spacey hip-hop. Songs like "Syde Trips" have jazzy drums and bluesy sounds, despite all the haunted-house sound effects. And other songs are, simply put, acid rap -- 2 Mex and Medusa are among the rappers that show up, against Nobody's swirling music.



The hip-hop angle is also the album's sole weakness. Nobody's work is so exquisite, it's distracting to have these guys rapping over it. On the second or third listen, however, their voices start to blend into the psychedelic trip. Freestyle Fellowship is the worst -- that song sounds like it belongs on an entirely different album.



To call "Soulmates" a hip-hop album is to underestimate it -- there is hip-hop in it, but also chillout electronica and jazz. (Hip-trip-hop-jazz?) It simply wouldn't work if it were just jazz, just electronica or just hip-hop. As a result, Nobody's versatility and complexity is an essential part of the music -- it always seems to be slowly building up to something, even if it never gets there.



Nobody uses a lot of samples and synth, giving the music a spacey feel. But underneath all this are piano and drums, acoustic guitar and what sounds like a sitar. All of this is twisted, distorted and given more echoes than a parrot. Is it good? Oh yeah.



The lyrics aren't too different -- they're a mixture of the grounded and the bizarre. The guest vocalists rap about space cadets, current politics, Mars, stargazing, rituals and "cyber-psychics brought here to fix your energy crisis." Whatever that means -- the fun is in listening, not comprehending.



"Soulmates" would be the perfect blend of hip-hop, trip-hop and jazz if it relief less on the rapping. But as it is, it's an exquisite piece of musical work."