And Clams is giving them to you for free. Stripped bare of lyrics and raps, these instrumentals stand on their own as fully realized songs, some sort of hip-hop-ambient-electro-dub hybrids. Instrumental Mixtape, Clams’ debut album, is a collection of some of his strongest beats. Lil’ B, Havoc of Mobb Deep, A$AP Rocky, Soulja Boy). He’s made beats for some of the most hyped up-and-comers (e.g. HOWEVER, if you just can’t help yourself, here are the cliffs notes: Clams Casino, aka Mike Volpe, is a 24-year-0ld producer/physical therapy student from New Jersey. So I recommend skipping to the bottom of this post and just grabbing the album. And I think the more you know about the actual creative process behind this album, the more that mysticism is stripped away. But it’s about as alien a place for our conscious minds to be as any. It’s some place we’ve all been before, and that gives it a feeling of comfort and safety.
Like maybe being back in the womb after thirty years outside of it. It feels both undeniably alien and inescapably familiar. As interesting as Clams Casino’s story is, the music is better heard without any context.
