Composer, producer, remixer, DJ, Toast Dawg has been active for nearly 25 years in the shadow of the Quebec hip-hop scene. “I prefer to make good music rather than live everything that can come with it”, tours, recognition, trophies, lark. Moreover, the veteran label of Quebec rap, he does not care, he who nevertheless marked his history by co-founding the groups Traumaturges and Atach Tatuq, whose album Deluxxx was awarded at the ADISQ gala in 2006. All that matters is the right groove; exactly, HDMOF, his new instrumental album, released last Friday, is stuffed with it.
In November 2021, the record company Ambiances Ambiguës inaugurated a branch dedicated to instrumental music. The label has since released an album by composer and pianist Martin Lizotte, one by the jazz-funk-electro collective Ping Pong Go, an instrumental folk album by the duo Saratoga and now this instrumental hip-hop record by the veteran: “When I presented my demos to the guys from the label, I told them: “To understand, you will listen Donuts” », masterpiece of the late composer J Dilla, a clear influence on the work and the approach of Toast Dawg, even to salute it in the title of one of the songs of the album, Donut of the 3.
Donuts consisted of 31 songs, all reduced to less than two minutes, except for WorkinOnIt at the beginning of the album. Of the 17 offered by Toast Dawg on HDMOFonly one ventures beyond two minutes: Love Loophole, the oldest of the project, where the heavy syncopated loop of drums and the cymbal welcome fat bass notes. It recalls the sound of the mythical album Endtroducing… (1996), a monument to instrumental hip-hop by DJ Shadow. At the end of the piece, Toast Dawg branches off to smoky reggae, before setting out again on the solid foundations of his rap rhythms.
Like Dilla, DJ Shadow and fellow rap songwriting stalwarts Madlib and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, Toast Dawg is a fan of recycling, sampling, energy-efficient music, showcasing groovy heritage. How many samples were used to make HDMOF ? Dozens, maybe hundreds, we will never know. The secret is in the sauce, and here’s how Toast Dawg cooks its beats: “I deconstruct in my head the music I listen to, quickly, quickly. The first sketches are done in about ten minutes. The key idea is there; then I imagine another. I do dozens like that, to come back to work on the best ideas. »
“Afterwards, I enhance all that in the studio”, continues the one who has signed rhythms for Brown, JAM, Lary Kidd and remixed Alaclair Ensemble. “Sometimes my samples didn’t even have a bass line, which I added in the studio. Sometimes it’s just small patterns of keyboards. Even for the compositions in which I had added electronic percussion, I try to ensure that we cannot distinguish what is part of the original sample or not. That’s the magic with music like this, and it’s the tour de force of those who are most successful in making beats : mix the sound elements well to force us to wonder how it all fits together. »
I deconstruct in my head the music I listen to, quickly, quickly. The first sketches are done in about ten minutes. The key idea is there; then I imagine another. I do dozens like that, to come back to work on the best ideas.
And like the best of the work of the American composers mentioned above, the Montrealer’s album has this timeless, already classic dimension. An approach and a sound that does not age, impervious to trends. “The guys from Popop find this album super sunny, but it’s not for me,” admits Toast Dawg, who says he worked on these rhythms during two painful pandemic winters, during which he notably experienced a romantic separation. “Each song, each sound detail in these songs, has a meaning for me”, he adds, inviting us to watch the medium-length film that accompanies the album, also imagined from archive images collected on Youtube.
“These images are what I felt when making the album,” he says. The title is HDMOF, this is the acronym of the first sentence of the success of Simon & Garfunkel, The Sound of Silencepublished in 1964: “ Hello Darknessmy old friend… »