WaMoo Papez in many ways represents both the old and new schools at once. His use of chopped up elements brings contemporary Brooklyn DJ’s like DJ/rupture into focus, but there’s a stateliness here that reminds me almost of RZA’s ability to pull hypnotic repetition together from minimal sources. And like RZA, Papez is known primarily as the producer behind a group of similarly named emcees: Warrior Monks.
The producer’s hypnotic adventures propel the listener through torrid explorations of hard-hitting bass drops projected under time-stretched vocal and string samples that become something entirely different when heard outside of an emcee’s verse. Papez’ new instrumental full-length ‘We Float’ finds you lost in the middle of some dream woods. ‘Golden Wishes’ and “Little Fish’ especially reach freakout territory; but all is held together by Papez’ knack for perfectly elastic beat flows. A deeply felt cluster of songs, it’s great to hear how well everything comes together in ‘We Float,’ even without an emcee there to lead the track. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)