As both the current respective statuses of both hip-hop and electronic-based music grow closer and closer while essentially intertwining their styles on a mainstream level, it is only right to examine the corresponding positions that the first purveyors of this concept have in this current landscape as it stands. These individuals are more often than not producers in their own right, as their approaches to what is now becoming an all-too-characteristic sound should be allotted and respected as wholly influential due to those aforementioned facts.
Perhaps no other producer has paved the way for our contemporary landscape more than Whitearmor has over the past decade — a decade they came to define on their own via their atmospheric, fleeting, and simply artful take on the worlds of ambient music and its nuanced intersection with hip-hop as it came to be known due to that very influence.
Though their legendary status is all-but-cemented in stone, they are still putting in resounding work day by day in reminding the public not only of their still-incredibly present talent, but also of their willingness to be as progressive as they once were even at the apex of their time in the limelight.
Their most recent pair of tracks entitled “Karma” and “13” under the Karma EP are spitting images of that exact concept in motion, as both of these songs hold down the fine line between the style the helped to inject into the mainstream consciousness, and the nuance that has yet to fully enter that world quite yet due to how forward-thinking Whitearmor has and always will be in their pure artistry alone.
“Karma” is a slow and submerging ballad that builds off of a consistent piano melody seeped in reverb and pure atmospheric weight. The track evolves from this point as it begins to incorporate numerous other facets that range from distortion-filled riffs along with soaring and fleeting synths — all building up to a culminating apex of sounds that softly dissolves into a calm and subdued conclusion.
The latter track “13” is a similarly dynamic offering with quite the high amount of instrumental divergencies to take note of. From the subtlety plucked string sections at the front-end of the song to the hollow and drawn-out vocal moans towards the middle, each and every aspect here moves in and out over a soft background pad that encapsulates the entire song’s mood and atmosphere throughout its entire runtime.
Both tracks here are experiences within themselves, and they certainly stand on their own as incredibly charged and thematic instrumental offerings without any other context given. But knowing that they stem from a deep-rooted and resounding figure like Whitearmor practically gives all the necessary meaning as to why they sound they way they do considering their background as an exemplary force in the production world — no matter what genre their influence lies in all the same.