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MH-225 The Opus - Breathing Lessons  After locking themselves in their Chicago studio with a mountain of dusty vinyl and two lifetimes worth of musical inspiration, the Opus have finally emerged to deliver Breathing Lessons a mesmerizing collection of reflective, instrumental hip-hop. Using their signature palette of chopped percussion and intricate drum programming as base materials, they expand their compositions, adding layers of strings, detuned piano, analog synths, floor rumbling bass, and reverb to haunting effect. Although the all-too-brief vocal appearance of Lord 360 reminds listeners of their productions for MCs on Rubberoom’s Architechnology and their own 2002 debut First Contact, this release is clearly intent on establishing the Opus as a production duo capable of creating music that stands on its own. |
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| Reviews Summary |
| One of the underground's finest beatmaking tandems - Urb / A fine example of instrumental hip-hop. - Exclaim! / Call it good mood music for bad moods. - Entertainment Weekly / Quality stuff for the introspective heads, and recommended. - Undercover / Nocturnally restful and hauntingly evocative. - Igloo |
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| Mr. Echoes and the Isle of Weight make up the Opus - an impressive duo no doubt. This is instrumental hip-hop at its best. As usual for most hip-hoppers, vocals samples are thrown down here and there and from time to time. The duo's programming skills are quite unique, better than anyone in the mainstream currently. This is true underground hip-hop, without the vocals, although Lord 360 appears on vocals briefly on one of the tracks. His rhymes are very poetic and dark. The music is often driving, very drum and bass-like but without much speed. This is more mid-paced hip-hop music. The duo has worked with many notable artists in the electronic scene including Meat Beat Manifesto. This duo is capable of doing any style of electronic music because they are that good as producers. With proper management, the Opus could go as far as becoming the next Neptunes duo, or maybe even bigger and better. - Clamor |
2XLP/Out Of Print