Tree Hopping Man

For my first written piece in at least three blue moons, I debated over what my massive comeback subject would be. I could have written about the amazing new albums from Shabazz Palaces or John Maus, or even a laudatory review of Primavera Festival, as it was truly great. Instead, I thought I would discuss the artist called Tree Hopping and the album ‘The Beat Band’, which was made ages ago and has had little to zero impact on the music industry.  To conclude, I like the music.

Tree Hopping constructs his songs around various world samples, from Ghanaian Highlife to Brazilian Tropicallia, with a Lo-fi, punkish incentive appreciated through the vocals. (Just to add this is not bad pretentious Lo-fi, but good, the opposite of pretentious, Lo-fi). The success story of this record is the artist’s masterful use of samples. The samples are simply applied with minimal manipulation but it is the effective choice and placement within the songs which displays great ingenuity on the artist’s behalf. This is complemented with the authentic guitar playing and driving rhythms, which also gives the impression that Tree-Hopping is a band, but in actual fact it is just one man, amazing right?

Highlights include the rhythm section in ‘face paint/breathing circle’ and ‘tough summer' which exposes the brilliant but simple use of samples in the second part of the song.

 Tree Hopping - Face Paint  Breathing Circle

 Tree Hopping - Tough Summer