Out My Window
(Stones Throw)
During the past year critic types enjoyed pointing out that the Stones Throw label was branching out. Let's be honest, the seeds of that growth have been there all along. For all the Guilty Simpson, James Pants and Baron Zen, there's always been Koushik.
The Canadian-born DJ/producer has a couple EPs, a few singles (the transcendent "None In Mind" from Chrome Children), remixes and production work under his belt. Now his debut full-length arrives just as autumn unfurls. Perfect timing.Koushik's gauzy music swirls together the dreamier asides from '60s sunshine pop and psychedelic soul with stealthy hip-hop rhythmic elements. The vintage and modern elements don't bump up against one another for the effect of high contrast and clever juxtaposition. His collage-artist touch is so light the songs fold over onto themselves with a sort of blissed-out dream logic.
He favors birdlike woodwind warbles, tender guitar picking and watercolor washes of keyboards, but gives obvious nods to the musical era he's mining with "Lying In the Sun." The back-masked wheezes and sucked-in percussion that start the track eventually encounter Magical Mystery Tour horns. However, the horns seem to come from a brass band marching in a parade several blocks away.
"Buttaflybeat" and "Welcome" provide the most Stones Throw sounds here, and wouldn't sound out of place on a Quasimodo record. But the rest is all Koushik's world, especially when he sings. His voice, buried in the mix and smeared in echo, peeks through the instrumental clouds but never blares outright. That might ruin the daydream.
Reference materials: Tons of 1960s soft-psych (The Lovin' Spoonful, Fifth Dimension, Friends of Distinction) with Joe Meek's Bluemen style percussion ("See You") and the true sound of Nino Rota in love ("Ifoundu") -- therein lies Koushik.
