Rob Crooks – Hearts Ep

Free album download from Winnipeg’s Rob Crooks, courtesy of Marathon of Dope. Get it here.

“Like any progressive form of music when it first emerges, the music found on the Hearts EP is hard to describe as any one specific genre. If you were to try to classify it, you might say that it fits somewhere inbetween hip-hop and indie rock; but that description is both far too broad and, paradoxically, far too narrow. Some of the songs from Hearts are initmate and confessional, like something off of a folk singer’s record; while other songs are some sort of mash of post-punk and electronic krautrock. The lyrics, well-crafted and insightful, range from enigmatic to allegorical, with many stops inbetween. Every sound on the EP – excluding the vocals of course – echos out of a tiny sampler, which at some times could be mistaken for a full band. This is partly because the sampler is not used as a sequencer. Instead, every sound is triggered live and played as if from any conventional instrument. The result is a slight swing that adds an exclusively human feel to the rhythm. The vocals on Hearts are sometimes rapped and sometimes sang; sometimes they are used to add to the cadence of the song as a whole, while at other times they fade into the background only to burst through again, jerking you out of an on-coming lull. And live there is no difference. Each piece is re-created on stage with one sampler and one voice. The songs on Hearts were made to be performed. The up-beat tempos are meant for the dancefloor and invite the spectator to become apart of the show.” — Marathon of Dope