Lately, I’ve been playing around with footwork, listening to, poorly imitating the moves of, and making some of my own inspired attempts.

I say lately, but this has been going on for the past couple years, there’s been a kind of revival, so it’s a bit of an opportune moment. Next tape a juke/KPOP crossover???
There’s something so powerful about exploring the oddest cut of a sample, barely ducked by the loudest Casio compressed drums, sampled music is clearly part of my DNA, but the footwork approach of hearing the trial version warnings of plugins and every single flub carrying over to the final version is its own special kind of freeing.

It offers yet another way to re-explore the perpetually growing library of sounds to flip, while directly touching upon my hip hop sensibilities, in the funnest, humor filled at times way, it’s so so cute!

Anyway! I got a new teapot! It’s from Jura! The famous potter! It’s good stuff, wonderful clay, beautiful effect on my teas, don’t have yet access to all the collection, but the little bit I’ve been able to try has been delightful, the smoothening effect is graceful, and it really compliments floral oolongs well, so not too smoothing! I suspect it would be great with young/dry shengs, but so far no tries from me! Will update, before forgetting about this blag, I’m sure.

And take a look at the made up teaboat! We love a resourceful setup. Expect more varied tea ramblings soon, I hope! I love tea.

Oh and here’s another song! On topic too, it’s called teaaging.mp3, it’s a little funny how many unreleased songs are just sitting there, like old tea leaves, I think a lot of people’s favorite part about making music and having friends who make it is getting to listen to unreleased work, as well as ideating/collaborating on it and yeah, no hot takes, same here.
I think part of this substack’s idea is sharing a bit of that, little nuggets of “I have no clue where to put this but after all this time it still hits“.
Thinking of it as a text centric DJ mix? Idk! A cross media adventure? A… blag???

Beat is by Shemar, there was a little extra project we were working on, with them in the producer section this time, but I haven’t found in me the drive to complete it yet, though I do treasure the songs made in that span.

A lot to appreciate in brief or temporarily, incomplete encounters. They have their own fullness I find.
I used to love hearing and saying the phrases “All pieces of art are abandoned“, or something to that effect to combat this tendency to work on dots for ages, just to produce one more round dot, and no applause to boot. Sadness!

The thing about these songs and most of the things I work on “solo“, at least rap wise is I just never really have a clue of what to do with adlibs/background interactions, I’m not getting better at that either, but I’m getting better at hitting silly pockets, I think, this is a bit old so not necessarily the best example, only wanted to brag!

Also, it is indeed tie guan yin amongst the spent leaves in that pic, as per the song, lol! It could for sure have been some wudui fuelled hk shengs or those delicious wild thai shengs that have been doing the rounds, those are so good, I need more of em!

But yeah TGY! It’s so easy to find, and they are usually a little aged too so it’s fun! This one’s from 2006 I think, definitely gift tea stuff, but still, reroast if needed and it’s a serviceable drink.

I’m not much of an oolong owl, more a heicha hound, or a sheng shark, or a baicha bee… metaphors and alliterations having run their course, despite the sort, this TGY feels pretty alright!
Oolong, to me, can be a little difficult to drink, but with age on them in general, the body feelings gets better, I remember I had a cheeky pouch of 1980s baozhong once and it was GORGEOUS, and soooo pleasing in its effects, but yeah, the fresh stuff can be hit and miss for me, though of course, I say that but will still drink daily drinker quantities of TGY just because you know, easy to find decent candidates!

My least frequent type of teas drunk is probably green, simply because it doesn’t keep so well, I love my greens though, to bits, also sometimes a lil crazy on the caffeine lol.
But the Cha qi itself is usually on point, so caffeine me!
Another reminder! Had a try of those famed aged green teas from Moychay last summer! They are pretty damn good!
Very fun summer hay, bitter, yellowed salty paper, vibes, reminds me of those uuuuh, you know those green teas from Tibet/around there, Lu Anns, and the other kind of hei cha that are similar.

I forget my names, there used to be an online vendor for more exotic heichas, but they recently closed (temporarily), what a pity, shoutout Exquisite Leaves!
A lot of good places close, support the actual good places, single person run initiatives, businesses, art projects (you heard of Outside House? Cute stuff!), they are some of culture’s most delicate gifts, let’s preserve them well :)

Here’s a random beat to leave you with, though not so random since it seems to continue along the road of footworkish explorations!

Okay, more just deconstructed club stuff, but there’s some of those funky drum snare patterns in there, I swear!

A road, an adventure, a journey.

Hopefully, these little blurbs will be regular, whether people read them or not, I think I’ll enjoy coming back to these time capsules in due time.

If you somehow read this and don’t know, last album out!
Well, okay, a couple releases out actually!

1. You can get physical CDs of this one on bandcamp, super super pretty, only a couple left! Plus there’s an animated video, and it’s a collaboration, so you know the music good! I’m so proud of it!

2. New EP Out! There ALSO is a music video??? Incredible? A twofer! AND AN OUTSIDE HOUSE YOUTUBE CHANNEL???? We really live in the afterfuture. Like, comment, subscribe, hit that bell, repost on Wechat, send it to 5 people on Whatsapp, idk do the things!

3. “Executive Produced“, on my Quincy Jones shit, the new Shemar! It’s really good! The streets (hip hop twitter) been loving it!
   Favorite tracks??? Are there even comments on this website? We’re about to find out! THOUGHTS???? Also, of course there’s a music video, what you think! Your weirdo friend whose way too into hip hop to not be an informant thinks it’s peak, are you going to disagree with them? Can you find the level of difficulty in this?
   

Also some production can be found on the new Hester Valentine tape: Valenta

Oh oh oh, and we on the new whereisfox too, truly out here, fantastic album, Shemar produced it, coming soon! What a Ruler!
In the meantime, here’s the single:

And that’s about it for a first entry, very full, very daring, how many spelling mistakes and awkward turns of phrases? I do not wish to know!

The horns are tooted, the egos are stroked, the music is played, the sounds are living, take good care of yourself <3