A presence locally with digital production efforts and a turn with Seekonk for more than a decade, C Money Burns releases this week his first full-length work under his own moniker, and its title is apt. Friends with Money is a collection of produced electronic works, four of them instrumentals and the other 10 of them featuring various guest vocalists, most of whom you'd label rappers.
You might even be familiar with "The Drizzle," dark and grimy with a great barren bridge of caustically delivered lyrics, which has been given a new mastering polish since the 2010 Goosebumps 4.0 release (and the pair of rappers Billy Hotdogs and Buster Douglas have apparently become Argyle Gargoylez in the interim).
Like that Goosebumps release, actually, this is varied and eclectic. It's underground indie hip hop and it's chillout electronica, silly digital funk and sillier Ghostbusters goth, an often manic and frantic concoction of beats and keyboard sounds. Like any of these producer-centric projects (this is Milled Pavement's 50th release, and the likes of labelmates Moshe and Mike Clouds have done similar) where the producer doesn't vocalize, the sound varies with the vocalist and some of Burns's best work here is seeming to bend them sonically to his will.
Does Riddlore? do particularly well to shape his rhythm to the bounce in the chorus of "Get Enuff" — or does Burns provide him with a production particularly suited to his style of delivery? Surely there's a little of both for a song to work like this. That Burns does as well with indie chartreuse Sydney Bourke (Sunset Hearts, Marie Stella), with backing '60s la-la-la vocals and a great pairing of storm-trooper bass and glossy triangle and vibraphone, is testament to the painstaking care he's taken in constructing the album.
Burns never falls in love with his own beats. He fits 14 tunes into 42 minutes and makes sure to get out of songs when the getting's good. Best of the lot are two mid-album tracks: The instrumental "Get Up, Stay Up" is sunshiney and playful, with a funk bassline and a kind of charming innocence; the following title track combines Brzowski, Virtue, and K-the-I??? for an attractive back-and-forth of sandpaper rough and velvety smooth. ^
FRIENDS WITH MONEY | Released by C Money Burns | on Milled Pavement Records | with Sole + Brzowski & Moshe + 32french | at SPACE, in Portland | Aug 17 | milledpavement.com/MP050.html
