“Open Cypher”

As the fourth track in the series, “Open Cypher” expands on the “band” at work in last week’s “Stay Spinning.” Go ahead and put your ear up to it:

What happened?

The heavy piano and horn section are once again prominent, this time with a scratchy, wah-pedaled rhythmic guitar, another intro/interlude of latin percussion, clap, and scratching, and a long “dance break” starting at 2:12 (which I look forward to dropping at an event as soon as possible 😬).

The scratchy guitar elements, inspired by the timeless licks of “We the People” by Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers (above) and built with the AAS Strum GS-2, became a key part of the rhythm, and I knew the scratches and the guitar would eventually complement each other, which is evident in the first two seconds and throughout the track.

The drawn-out, offbeat shuffle in the chorus segment really drove the project, and fed naturally into the “groove” or verse segments that follow a more traditional beat.

The scratch comes from the same verse used in “Stay Spinning,” the tribute to AKA Lounge Monday nights:

Once upon a time in downtown O-town,
Monday nights a get down would go down,
open cypher, round after dope round,
weeklong hype, the whole town would know about.

The name was taken from the scratch sample, and the artwork was also inspired by memories of AKA Lounge, where an aged, wood floor was illuminated under spotlights in an otherwise dark room.

Stay tuned to my Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages for new tracks in this series, mixtapes, and whatever else happens. Check out more “Behind the Beats” here.