We’ve got the premiere of Paperbark’s latest EP Faded Covers. On Faded Covers, Paperbark has remixed a number of 90’s hip hop classics in a way that renders them almost unrecognizable, yet still profound monuments to the original tracks. Described as a “meditative journey” by Paperbark, Faded Covers is as much an experience as it is an album as it builds and creates a vast new audio universe from the stardust of the original songs from artists like De La Soul, Big L, O.C., and Pete Rock & CL Smooth.
The EP opens with “TROY”, a song that captures the beginning of the journey. It is a massive song not unlike an enormous engine roaring to life, pulling into its vortex snippets of lyrics and rhymes. Divorced from their beats, this spiraling storm of poetry surrounds the listener as walls of thrumming sounds continue to shake the edges of reality.
“Stakes is High” follows and the song is an immersive alien trip to outer space or the deepest depths of an ocean as the listener is caught in the undertow of crashing soundwaves. Tones like some distant whale song call out over ambient propulsion that pulls the song and listener forward. In this reinterpretation of the original songs, new massive works of art are revealed as they rise from their former incarnations as part of this striking new step in evolution.
“Born to Live” is the next song on the EP and it also takes the listener on a spacey odyssey through a star field of influences, thoughts, and dreams. Lyrics come like remnants of forgotten memories that leave aural trails through space and time, caressing the listener until the song fades away and cools down to nothing.
The final track is “Put it On” and out of all the songs on the album, the original lyrics are at their most clear here. As Big L’s rhymes echo from some far off galaxy, monumental sounds continue to build as they threaten to consume the reality of the track. The song and album come to a close as the Faded Covers universe slowly collapses, its embers glowing duller until they are finally extinguished into nothingness.
You can download Faded Covers for free via our exclusive premiere right here. You can follow Paperbark on Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp.
