It’s dependent on the ear of the music listener, but instrumental albums — for me — are incredible. I think the sheer ability to carry along listeners without vocal accompaniment is a feat in itself, especially when you’re reaching a Hip Hop audience. Acts like Dilla, for example, make it easy for listeners to nod along to the soulful bass chops; but it takes a more adventurous producer and listener relationship to go outside the box on some new-age exploration. Enter Han Sino.
Based in France — just outside of Paris — he’s taking a blend of new-soul, jazz, 90’s Hip Hop, and spoken word aesthetic and creating some interesting LPs. His latest, Glucose, is a wealth of sounds, vibes, and emotions that make for a dope soundtrack to metropolitan movements.
Fans of acts like Madlib or the like will definitely vibe along with Han along the entirety of the twelve songs on the instrumental project; although I sometimes find it hard to write about instrumental projects, I’ll give you my best interpretation of my personal experience with this new-jazz gem of s project.
Glucose is – at once – ambient, cohesive, fresh and (at points) aggressively digital. I gave it two full in depth play-throughs.
The first was during a daytime jaunt through my city’s Chinatown during an abnormally busy time of day. The ambient vocals, provided by Han himself, among the chunky bass on “Arabesque,” and the jazzy vibe blended with the almost atmospheric strings of “Colors” made for a trippy, cinematic soundtrack.
There seems to be a common element I found in the core bass lines throughout that created this kind of continuous flow through out the whole LP. At a few points, I was so immersed in the experience that I hadn’t noticed that the transitions were new songs all together.
My second listen was during a nighttime run, which gave the album a completely different feel. This time the latter half of the project spoke to me more; I found myself going back to “Purple Doves,” with its underlying chime that put me in mind of the intro to Run DMC’s “Jam Master Jay.” “Deeply Sleepin’” also stood out to me way more on my second listen.
Han Sino has a unique vibe that I’m not quite used to – yet. With a Paris state of mind and unique yet oddly comfortable take on rare jazzy groove, he puts my mind in a good space. If you’re at all creative in any capacity beyond music, I urge you a to add this cat to your getting shit done playlist; satisfaction guaranteed.
You can bump the whole LP, here.
