Quatromatic
Stolen Sound Vol.1
Importal

7/10

Always start by getting the listeners’ attention! That’s what my old man and my piano teacher used to say before every small-time piano recital I did. And listening to the first 2 minutes of Quatromatic’s EP entitled Stolen Sound Vol.01, attention is very much delivered quickly to the listeners’ doorstep.

This 22-minute EP begins with a 30-second intro track with heavy guitars provocatively entitled ‘Penggadai Jiwa’, which sounds very much like what RZA would use as a guitar loop on a Wu-Banga or what Hendrix would play in his Axis: Bold as Love days. It then fades out and launches into a heavy Mississippi-blues guitar riff (with accompanying hand clapping and chopped blues vocals of course) before the drums kick in to a quite thunderous effect. ‘Insomnia’ quickly follows with its string samples, soul shrieks, funky guitar chops and bumpy bass-lines while ‘Armada Aksara’ clearly shows the influence the late-great J-Dilla has had on this particular Jakarta-based producer.

Speaking of influences, the second half of the record begins with a massive head-nod towards RZA and Wu-Tang as everything about the track ‘Chambers of Mashmakan’ screams of Robert Diggs: the sword-swashing opener, the organ chops, the vocal samples, the lot. The piano heavy ‘Pistol dan Alkohol’ precedes the similar sounding yet catchy ‘Chopper’ before it goes into simple reworkings of S.O.U.L’s ‘Burning Spear’ and George Duke’s ‘Someday’ for ‘Fact is the New Fiction’ and ‘Easy’ respectively.

As a final thought, I find it strange that while this record may sound slightly outdated due to its late-90s hip hop feel, my lifelong belief that good music from any era is still ultimately good music still holds precedent. In fact, despite having an unpolished (and sometimes unfinished) feel throughout this EP, overall it’s a great thing that Quatromatic, his partner-in-crime Serenada Iblis, as well as a whole host of other talented local producers are churning out instrumental hip-hop that isn’t god-awful Bling Rap. And long may that continue.