Beans - End It All

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4...according to our Business Lady on Thu 03 Mar, 2011.

Yeah yeah yo! Beans returns with his fourth solo outing and it's a beast. After the pressure of producing the fifth album for his recently reunited left-field hip-hop outfit Anti-Pop Consortium Beans felt the need to blow off some steam and do something different and hence the arrival of 'End It All'. Here Beans concentrates on the rhymes and leaves the production to a host of innovative artists and producers including Four Tet, Clark, In Flagranti, TOBACCO, members of Interpol, TV On The Radio and The Bumps (Tortoise's rhythm section). Considering the variety and eclecticism of the artists involved this is a surprisingly consistent record and the best hip-hop LP I've heard since Raekwon's 'Only Built For Cuban Linx II'. Beans spits all sorts of vocabulary over various awesome cuts with early highlights being collaborations with Four Tet entitled 'Death Sweater' and 'Anvil Falling' (which is pure Outkast style), TOBACCO's 'Glass Coffins' and the ultra tidy old skool 'Electric Eliminator' courtesy of the John McEntire and John Herndon of Tortoise whose Bumps LP comes highly recommended. It'll take a while longer for me to digest the intricacies of the rhymes but from what I've heard so far, Beans is on fine form, bigging himself up with his tongue firmly pressed against the inner of his cheek. His rhymes are also printed on the insert which is a rarity. Why Warp didn't hold on to this lad is beyond me.

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* 4th LP & anticon debut from former Warp Records artist Beans (of Anti-Pop Consortium).
Features Four Tet, Clark, In Flagranti, TOBACCO, members of Interpol, TV On The Radio, Tortoise, and more.

* Vinyl pressing strictly limited to 1000 units for the world.. Download coupon included.

* When it came time to craft his fourth album, Brooklyn-based rap rebel Beans needed to get out of his head. His old
group, the legendary left-fielders Anti-Pop Consortium, had reunited and he’d been devoting his energy to their long-
awaited fifth LP, Flourescent Black. His last solo record, Thorns, was bittersweet—one of his greatest works to date, but
an exercise in raw, exhausting emotion. For a minute, he even considered calling it quits.

* Thankfully, Beans went a different route. He titled his new record End It All—a make it or break it promise—and looked
outside his window for inspiration. What he saw is now the meat of his Anticon Records debut: lush, darkly tinted
soundscapes from some of the most inspired names in contemporary production—Four Tet, Clark, TOBACCO, Son Lux,
Interpol’s Sam Fog—united by the inimitable flow and reborn swagger of Beans.

* End It All is the first Beans album to feature all guest production, and it finds the emcee pushing his distinct staccato
rhyme style to new heights across a varied but fluid buildup of beats. The biggest challenge, and perhaps the best
results, comes from “Blue Movie,” a Son Lux original that trades in lush orchestral bursts and fuzzy drum pileups. The
maximal style is a good look for Beans, who rides the unmistakable wobbly bass and live clatter of Sam Fog’s “Electric
Bitch” with effortless aplomb.

* Lyrically speaking, Beans is at his fiercest, spitting highly stylized braggadocio (see the Nobody-produced
“Deathsweater” or Clark’s “Hunter”) and noirish narratives in turn. A ravenous consumer of mystery novels, his favorite
pastime comes to life in the character study found on Four Tet’s rapid-fire banger, “Anvil Falling,” and in the black
imagery that fittingly accompanies TOBACCO’s “Glass Coffins.” Meanwhile, Beans is at his polyrhythmic best delivering
a single track-length verse over “Electric Eliminator,” produced by Bumps (Tortoise’s drum section).

* Aggressive until the end, End It All burns through 13 tracks in 33 minutes, with Beans barely stopping to breathe. There
is one exception though, the appropriately titled “Mellow You Out.” Here, Beans slows his roll as his own words move
in and out of the eerie vocals of TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. The late-album track is an obvious highlight, but
more importantly, proof that Beans is as versatile as he is a true original—making him more dangerous than ever.

TRACKLIST:

1. Superstar Destroyer, 2. Deathsweater, 3. Gluetraps, 4. Electric Eliminator, 5. Electric Bitch, 6. Glass
Coffins, 7. Blue Movie, 8. Mellow You Out, 9. Air Is Free, 10. Forever Living Fresh, 11. Anvil Falling, 12. Hardliner, 13.
Hunter

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