released December 7, 2018

Produced & Performed by Roach Dad.
Additional Synths by Teal Child.
Mixed by Teal Child
Recorded and Mixed at H.O.H
Mastered by Casey McCurry
Additional Mastering & Executive Produced by Brett Eclectic
Artwork by Roach Dad

Roach Dad - 3RD MOTHER by Nosh
Finally! I could feel the heat coming from the mailbox. I carefully opened the familiar sized and personalized paper bag envelope (think elementary school book covers but drawn by mark judge). I was delighted to reveal the hand painted blood red, ganja green, black and gold custom cassette is mostly anonymous other than a spookily stylized makers mark of "RD" and "3rd" in the corners. Accordingly, the tape begins with thick, menacing, sustaining strings, slow and lofi trappy drum machines and what sounds like souls in the wind a la the disembodied spirit room in the movie Beetlejuice. "Life a bitch but she choke on it" sets it off with the horns that brought down Jericho and a moody at midnight soundtrack synth, all HEAVILY dubbed out. "Dead bed" begins on a lighter note but is serious with the reel to reel delays, weaving tastefully hand warped samples flipped from vinyl snips with soloed snares like exclamation points, this shorty really warms you up the next slow burner, "Immaculate Contraceptive". More warbled SP1200 magic on this one but with really bouncy drums that bring you places along with creamy synth accents, this one shines with the deconstructive dub mix by Teal Child, stripping it down and bringing it back together in a way that's a blast for the listener to get lost in. Then comes the honking horns of a cartoon Al Capone's caravan, as the quirky yet seriously hard "Sneakers (95 Chevy)" mixes a tight layer of grimy analogue drum machine trap juxtaposed with a clunky percussion part from a dusty record, in the right setting this could make you spill a little of your ratchet cup turning up. Ending side A with a reverb tail so long it's like smoke clearing sort of cleanses the palette for the reminiscent and greasy ballade that is "In Pillows", kicking off more sentimental Side B. Lyrical drums, slick sample work and tasteful reverbs really evoke an image of yesteryear in the listener, setting up the reflective interlude "Daddy?", a fleeting, psychedelic, faded polaroid type beat that fades out so fast you might want to put it repeat indefinitely. Don't worry though, ROACH DAD again stokes the fire for a searing guitar sample over a vibrato thick soul choir and fat bottom for the appropriately named "Swole". Being the most boom bap track on the album means it gets the heaviest Teal Child treatment, being stretched out and stripped down in a mixing-board-as-instrument way, adding all kinds of flavor. After a fast fade out comes my personal favorite of the tape, the passionate anthem "Bedroom Athlete". The lofi transmuting alchemy of the SP1200 blends the chimes and bells and high pitched swells together where they are as indistinguishable as they are beautiful. This is really emphasized by the tape delay are perfect on what to me is considered an instant classic. Immediately after its as if I took off my headphones and I'm transported to the "Shaw's Ice Cream Isle", listening to the pleasant sounds of a 60s supermarket on this dreamily chill interlude that lures you into the ice cream freezer that nightmares are made of, the sinister yet soft, sadistic and honest outro "Beginning Again". While not being for every hip hop head or dance party, this innovative, artistic and limit pushing beat tape will have more active listeners vibing out with the ROACH DAD featuring Teal Child on the boards for his first solo release on Sneer Records. For more insight about the process and other thoughts, peep the interview. Holler at the ROACH DAD and SNEER to set fire to YOUR mailbox! Peace.


Roach Dad interview 11.20.18
[recorded on cassette Dictaphone and transcribed]
[tape start]

Nosh: For the people out there that might not know, who is ROACH DAD?

RD: That is an older name [inaudible] ALTERED GEE [inaudible] from when we started jamming out the house, um, that's where it started, definitly because I'm a dad, and, uhh yeah [laughter]

N: The HOUSE O HITS?

RD: Oh yeah

N: Your new albums name is THIRD MOTHER, who are the first two? [laughter] Nah, really though, how long has this album been a concept? Run down a timeline.

RD: This is the third solo record I've put out and it definitly is from a while back. Pretty much most of the songs are from the time of the first ALTERED GEE record came out. Like 2012-13 is when I started some of these songs but it was a concept before that. I had wanted to do a third record already but after the altered gee stuff I was kinda crankin those songs out and had more of an idea. I used to have tons of ideas of how I wanted it to sound but once the Roach Poachers came out (ALTERED GEE!) I said, "okay, people were really feeling that so lets do something that's in that vibe but also kinda like some of the classics I had done before then", and the big idea was to just have Baby (aka TEAL CHILD) mix it, you know, to kinda flip it. I knew he would do what I wanted to do.

N: You say Baby mixed this one. How did that come to be? You guys have a good chemistry together and can kind of share a vision as Altered Gee, but how do you approach transforming your SP1200 beats into the spread out, dubby THIRD MOTHER?

RD: Yeah, I had made all these on the SP1200, there were some I really liked and some he really liked and we just bounced them straight outta the SP [isolated tracks] into the big 8 track that all the ALTERED GEE and other stuff was recorded on [the coveted tascam 388]. I was actually just talking to him and a couple of the songs have the old delay, which is toast now, an actual reel to reel tape delay. Some of the others are with a pretty shotty delay pedal from [jazz musician] Allen Lowe. We used that. We mixed this a while ago.

N: You guys mixed this together?

RD: Yeah, we luckily finished the mixes before the big tape machine broke. I had given it Casey [Sunset Hearts] to master and I had a friend do the cover and waited forever for that and by the time it was finished, we were on some ALTERED GEE shit, like really hard, so I wasn't really sweating it. It was nice to have a mastered record. Then Brett [SNEER RECORDS] reached out to me and said that he was interested in putting it out, so I banged that cover out and there it is, it finally sees the light of day. He's putting it out digitally, I'm doing some tape bootlegs locally.

N: Lets get into the process a little more. So the tape machines have such a warm saturation and also an unpredictability to them from breaking [laughter]

RD: Lots of gear on its way out but doing its job for sure. That's the thing, it really is one of the last things we put together like that. You know, me and baby get in the studio and wild out. Catching the moment. That's thing with those mixes, we didn't do a million takes.

N: It was analogue, organic...

RD: I wanted to go off. He heard the song a bunch of times but thats different from mixing.

N: You could just say a few words and he'd just know. You guys already had a cohesion from playing together for so long.

RD: Yeah, and I love his mixing style. I always have. We work together and learn from each other. He was always wildin out with the tape mixes, which I immediately grabbed right on to and wanted to do it but didn't have the means or know how to do it because you know it's the old school dub way of mixing, which I love, so I automatically got into that. Thats the thing, with the Roach Poachers we were both mixing. We'd just get together, we're wildin out. We got, you know, ratchet cups going and just going back and forth and trying to get crazy. To one up each other almost, you know to push each other to get more wild but like, have it remain cohesive and not get out of control.

N: You can feel that in the music, that restlessness, that pushing foward. Speaking on the live mixing, the dub style, I like how it's a deconstruction. You break it all the way down and bring it in all twisted like, teasing parts in and out.

RD: I love the vibe of the record. It just does what its supposed to do. It's what we do. Take it serious but not too serious. If you don't fuck with it that's cool, if you do fuck with it you git it.

N: It's so spaced out and warbled, so many textural things from how you sampled and arranged some things, the bass is so thick and some parts are so subtle and pretty. Its really got a vibe to it.

RD: That was the other thing too. We get in there and start mixing stuff and Baby would be like, "oooh! I can just like add this one little thing there", and that made it pop off so much more. Thats the thing, when i originally thought about doing THIRD MOTHER and it not just being an album of beats, that's because of hanging out with him and not wanting to make just beats with him around. So I'm doing my thing and letting him do his thing and it came together really well.

N: It's clear he's a big part of this album but lets be real, a lot of the sorce material, the sampling on the SP1200, the way it's cut and sequenced with the vintage drum machines. Even the way you sample things, nudging the record type shit that makes it pop off. It's got a backbone of rap production from a series of live beat tapes.

RD: I always go back to it at some point. At the time we were making those songs we were making so much other music. He [Baby] wasn't working at the time so I'd be doing my thing by day while he's clocked in the lab and he'd go out and get into trouble at night. It was like a factory. Someone was always playing music.

N: It was like a real factory! Make something and say, "here's this part" and pass it down the assembly line to the next person. [laughter]

RD: Exactly. That's the thing, it's like "Oh shit, everyones into some shit tonight but I'm here alone so I'm just gonna make some beats, I suppose." Get into that. Try to have fun with myself making beats.

N: Yeah, with the Altered Gee stuff, at times you'd have so many drum parts lined up in the queue that you'd find a rare moment to work on something for you.

RD: That's the thing. You have free time. What do you do? What else the fuck are you doing. That's how we're rolling. Oh you wanna party? We're partying while we make the tunes. It is a party.

N: THIRD MOTHER came from some inspired times. You can hear it in the music. Kinda trappy. Kinda bappy. Madd spacey. All over the place but perfect. Contained chaos.

RD: Definitly. Thats the whole thing with styles and I like the style of this tape. I am curious about when it comes out, as far as it being older and the rap style, coming out on Sneer, which is more of a funk thing. You know I got some funky shit cooking, just gotta add a few things, master it, this and that and I'd ideally like to do that by spring and I'm really excited about that stuff, but it's like a whole different vibe than THIRD MOTHER, so we'll see.

N: This record is so good I can't imagine it's age factoring in. When did Second Mother come out?

RD: That came out when I was playing shows with ADAM B [2009?]. I made a mini CD that was called GAIN SOME WEIGHT FOR ME GORGOUS. [laughter]

N: Yeah! That was it. Even though you come from a hip hop background, all your solo records have had a funky element, that live something. You can't really sequence that.

RD: Yeah, the first tape wasn't all drum machine. The second one was the most straight foward rap type thing. I don't even have a copy. Adam does. I'm no longer the keeper of relics anymore. Adam has it. I have some. I have the real Tale as Old as Time album mixed down to a shitty maxwell. That is it though. We could never remix the songs like that now. They're so of that time period and plus I have a thousand memories attached just to that tape. Any of that older stuff, I'm no longer the keeper of the archives, so it took a bit to get the digital masters. That's part of the reason you got that cassette in the mail. I wanted to just jet those over to you on the dropbox, but you know, I'm over here on monster island with no 'net.
N: Well, this was a good intervi..
[tape stop]

Bio:
Born in L/A and raised in Portland, Maine, R. D. cut his teeth as a lanky hip-hop DJ with a close crew cut and period appropriate Karl Kani sweats, giving up his 14th summer to flipping burgers so he could stack and cop a set of technic turntables and a golden Vestax mixer. He could’ve stuck with the beginner set he got one funky Xmas, but he knew from the jump off that having the right gear was crucial, second only to how you use it. Finesse comes to mind. The way he made those scratch records sing, there was something there beyond a fad. DJ Slouch had soul, taste and good timing, at one point finding himself as a last-minute substitute DJ for a Wu-Tang concert.

From here he became a certified crate digger, working at a music shop, having a table at swap meets, being part owner in a record store and even having actual wooden crates of Nigerian funk delivered exclusively. Even more unique than his knack for acquiring and collecting is his ability to absorb what he hears, playing full songs track by track in his head while silently twirling his now natty curls. Taking cues from local lords while building his empire, DJ-turned-producer again opted immediately for a very serious tool from the golden era, an SP1200. With the same vision and grace he hinted at on the tables, he cut and flipped only the rarest vinyl selections into lyrical boom bap that celebrates the subtle and reconstructs the recognizable, live tapping ten seconds of samples strewn across the Atariesque buttons into a living, jazzy jam on it.

Playing rap shows is fun, but after a decade he wanted to do something to facilitate that funky feeling and get these wallflowers on the floor. His drumming and programming at its most solid and polished playing side gigs as electronic instrument accompaniment in a jazz group that sessioned with a few legends in NYC, he was steady readying himself for something big. Meanwhile, the was young prince lurking on the periphery, only surfacing to ask Roach Dad for record recommendations, playing shows and occasionally working at the record store. That dynamic changed one fateful night when they were booked on the same bill. The afterparty is still going to this very day.