October 2020 – BBB RADIO

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ALBUM REVIEW: SV – The Reminisce Beat Tape

“The Reminisce Beat Tape” is a re-released 2015 beat tape from Boston hip hop beatmaker and co-founder of the St. Louis-based Jim’s Pool Room label, Sean “SV” Veligor. Originally uploaded to Soundcloud in a 25-track version, this re-release has 14 tracks and a 19-minute runtime.

Like his “B Side Beat Tape” release from 2015 (a literal B-side of sorts to his well-received 2013 project “The Slap Jazz Beat Tape” that’s also available on iTunes and Apple Music – oddly enough with the same 16 tracks from the original Soundcloud version), “The Reminisce Beat Tape” is a collection of instrumentals that weren’t used on any other project. This isn’t new in the world of hip hop production, as many established producers like DJ Premier, Pete Rock and the late, great J Dilla have released a majority of their “unreleased” work to their adoring fans.

Similar to those aforementioned producers, SV’s production style is steeped in jazz, funk and soul, with his chosen samples encapsulated in groovy, head-nodding boom-bap sounds. This is apparent from the opening track “Groovin”, whose irresistibly smooth saxophone melodies glide their way through the instrumental’s bouncy, energetic drums, resulting in one of the tape’s most delightful beats.

As it is a loose collection of unreleased beats, “The Reminisce Tape” runs through different moods and emotions. As the title suggests, the tape feels like a sonic recollection of moments from one’s life and/or musical journey, like listening to a classic record for the first time, falling in love, attending a party years ago or discovering a sample used in one of your favourite rap songs.

On the subject of samples, a few tracks on “The Reminisce Tape” are centered on a vocal snippet, with SV finding the right backing instrumentation to support it. Take the track “Burnin’ with Desire”, where the soulful vocal of a male singer is laced over a mid-tempo beat with trap-based hi-hats, swelling violins and bluesy piano keys. The violins and piano do clash a few times on the instrumental, giving the overall song a slightly off-kilter vibe, but as a whole, “Burnin’ with Desire” is indeed a highlight.

The following instrumental “Sexy Ways” samples the beat and hook from the 1980 duet “Love your Sexy Ways” from Damion & Denita (I TRULY APPRECIATE digging in the online crates for this one, SV) and adds some head-nodding boom-bap drums and rhythmic handclaps. I’d imagine a rapper recording a party-to-after-party-to-hotel-lobby song to this, thanks to its catchy, radio-friendly beat.

On other tracks, the mood and vibe of a particular genre or musical era are used as inspiration. The beat “Not Like Before” – which actually opens on the backend of the previous track “Miss your Walk” (more on that in a bit) with a refrain from what sounds like a psychedelic, late-60s folk rock song – evokes the sound of a folk rock song with its forlorn female vocals and hazy guitars. “Sacrifice”, on the first half of the tape, sounds like the soundtrack to a gritty 70s Blaxploitation flick with its nocturnal, Lincoln Continental-riding beat and accompanying soulful male vocals.

But the overall objective of “The Reminisce Tape” is simply to vibe and/or chill out to SV’s beats. Given this project’s loop-based beat compositions and its tracks’ individual runtimes barely crossing a minute, it’s clearly not designed to entirely grab your attention to a particular sample, production choice or drum pattern. In other words, it’s all about mood and tone – from calm and meditative like “Miss Your Walk” (one of my favourite cuts from the tape) with its spacey, laid-back instrumental and “All Over” with its sophisti-pop-inspired beat, to heavenly and dreamy like the piano-driven “So High” and breezy and sunny like “Can Kicker” and “I Really Do”.

In the end, I truly dug the vibes presented on “The Reminisce Tape”. If I have any major gripes, it’s that I wish the tracks were a bit longer. Not the equivalent of full songs with vocalists on them, mind you, but at least a minute more (like on “The Slap Jazz Beat Tape”) for me to truly invest myself in these beats. For newcomers to SV’s production, “The Reminisce Tape” is a great place to start, although I do recommend checking out “Slap Jazz” first. SV is certainly someone I’ll have in mind in terms of carrying the torch of traditional, sample-based hip hop production proudly throughout the 2020s, and I can’t wait to hear what he brings next to our boom-bap-loving ears!

OVERALL RATING: Decent 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

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