Back in 2005, Edan Portnoy walked off with the indie-rap MVP award for Beauty and the Beat, his psychedelic mind-bomb. He’s been eerily quiet since then, occasionally popping up on his friends’ records (Cut Chemist’s The Audience’s Listening, Mr. Lif’s I Heard It Today), posting a few DJ mixes on his MySpace page, and not doing much else.
Echo Party, set for release on November 17 via Lewis Recordings, finally ends the silence…sort of. It’s an extended remix of material from Traffic Entertainment’s catalog; the Boston-based distributor has assembled countless reissues of old-school material, including Cold Chillin’s 80s catalog and B-Boy Records’ catalog (Boogie Down Productions, JVC Force). So it’s not exactly original songs, but Edan, much like Richie Hawtin (do a Google search), freaks the material enough to make it his own.
No tracklisting this time, as it appears to be a single, 29-minute track. Here’s further explanation:
Echo Party is just that–a party, an eccentric bonanza of sounds that has been lovingly crafted, polished and played to perfection. Edan had full access to Traffic Entertainment Group’s extensive back catalog to mix and rework in any way he could imagine. Two years and a new label later, Five Day Weekend and Edan are set to release Echo Party. What began as a simple mix, has grown into a colorful full on production album that features Edan as the musician displaying his skills on live instruments including synthesizers, guitar, percussion, echoplex… even glockenspiel and kazoo.
Echo Party has Edan’s personality intermixed with a wealth of amazing material. Elements are pulled from original multi tracks and these isolated accapellas and drum breaks have not been heard by any ears except the engineers and original artists that were in on the original sessions. Other portions are more identifiable though obscured by the filter of Edan’s ever improving studio techniques. Only an artist like Edan with his borderline obsessive commitment to detail could have brought such a project to life.
