"Looking back in time at Stones Throw and Brainfeeder, it is the music that influenced those labels which now influences Jacob 2-2."
On a YouTube upload of “Chemical Plant Zone”, the soundtrack to the second level of the 1992 video game Sonic the Hedgehog 2, a top comment reads: “I’ll never forget when I was a kid and my dad overheard this and came into the room and turned it up”. The song was composed by Masato Nakamura, the bassist for the J-pop and R&B group Dreams Come True.
I’ll never forget. There is something about these theme songs, particularly the music for 80’s and 90’s television and video games, that are hard to forget. The Reading Rainbow theme song featured vocals by Tina Fabrique, and later Chaka Khan, singing along to animated dragons and spaceships. The Magic School Bus had Little Richard belting over a shrunken bus careening through someone’s lower intestines, maybe assisting with a colonoscopy.
Despite any silliness surrounding the programming itself, the music was often serious business. Regardless of being outrageously weird, The Simpsons theme song was and still is iconic and unforgettable. This music used to soundtrack kids’ lives. About Indoor Dreams of Ghosts, David Ahuja aka Jacob 2-2 states:
“In many ways, this is a spiritual sequel to Herbivore which was centred around childhood nostalgia for days spent alone indoors, playing make-believe and building imaginary worlds. Thanks to Covid, which never ended for some of us, that experience has been relived as a full-grown adult. I began making music again with no intent on releasing it, just making the most of isolation, focusing inward and attempting to regain that childlike sense of free exploration and wonder.”
If you’re already a fan of Jacob 2-2, then you know you really can hear the childhood nostalgia seeping through his music. But, “childhood nostalgia” is not really a way to describe sound, and hauntology / hypnagogic pop don’t really scratch the surface here.
A couple decades before Jacob 2-2’s debut album Herbivore came out, Christopher Manak aka Peanut Butter Wolf founded Stones Throw Records, with the earliest records on the label coming out in the late nineties. Manak states, “The first song I remember [having] an impact on me (besides Schoolhouse Rock) was ‘What’s Goin On’ by Marvin Gaye.”
In the early days, Stones Throw would explore the outer limits of abstract hip-hop and boom bap, the kinds where collaged jazz, funk, and soul samples challenged the listener’s expectations about what instrumental hip-hop can and should be. Quickly, though, the label blossomed out with truly monumental releases where producers became capital-A Artists sitting right beside or even in front of the MCs. In the case of Quasimoto/Madlib, the producer and vocalist were the same person.
Through Stones Throw, producers didn’t just elevate sampling, but they also created truly live, instrumental records, like with Madlib’s Yesterdays New Quintet. Multi-instrumentalists like DāM-FunK orchestrated complex synth funk compositions. In an effort to evolve beyond the sampler, the producers ventured into live instrumental music. Maybe it’s one of those cases where history repeats itself.
Stones Throw would go on to release J Dilla’s Donuts, an album that completely defined the future of the beat scene. Shortly after Donuts, wonky / “purple sound” took shape in the US and the UK respectively. The contemporary producers of hip-hop and grime, many of whom grew up playing video games, started incorporating chiptune and other video game tropes in their work. Well-established electronic music genres like IDM and UK dubstep infiltrated the music as well. Producers like Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Lone, Teebs, Lapalux, Machinedrum, Hudson Mohawke, Knxwledge, and Joker all would make their debut. Flying Lotus, whose own music would be popularised through the late-night cartoon-adjacent programming block Adult Swim, went on to found Brainfeeder, a stronghold for these new sounds.
In particular, the output of Stones Throw and Brainfeeder and this cohort of artists act as a direct lineage to 2013’s Herbivore. It is about the music that soundtracked our childhood imaginations, music that often contrasted the silly shit on screen with rich chord progressions, spacy bell sweeps, and a safari of sound fonts, all while incorporating these new wonky beats, dense synth compositions, and neon-lit leads. Yes, it’s a record steeped in nostalgia, but it’s much more than that. Music that often gets pigeonholed as “nostalgic” also typically gets labelled as “lo-fi”, but Jacob 2-2’s music is anything but. This is where Herbivore pays its strongest dues to music on the screen: the production is of the highest quality.
It’s a long-winded preamble for a review about Indoor Dreams of Ghosts, Jacob 2-2’s latest album, and the topic at present. A lot has happened in between Herbivore and Ghosts. The whole world hates the US, and everyone in the US hates the US, too. Covid came and went. Society is still trying to get up and move on from it, but we forget how serious it was; there was a time near the start of the pandemic when upwards of 5 or 600 people were dying per day in New York City.
These societal cracks make their appearance on Indoor Ghosts. Where tracks like “Struck Out / Foliage” on Herbivore feature Nature Channel-like narration relaying facts about dinosaurs, “Lounges for Mass Extinction” includes narration about the extinction of those same dinosaurs, and maybe our own extinction. The dramatic album closer “Hospice”, though not generally as dire as mass extinction, depicts the loss of a loved one, perhaps even the loss of oneself.
But beyond these programmatic themes, the music itself is even more richly orchestrated than Herbivore was. Looking back in time at Stones Throw and Brainfeeder, it is the music that influenced those labels which now influences Jacob 2-2.
“Indoor Ghosts” opens the album in a similar way that “The Creator Has a Master Plan” opens Pharoah Sanders’ Karma: grand, spiritual, even supernatural, with melodic elements providing the exposition while chords loosely come and go underneath. “Lounges for Mass Extinction” marries breakbeat and spacy synth funk, eventually spiralling out of control with a saxophone wipeout that’s not unlike a Pharoah Sanders-style wipeout.
“Ebisu” is arguably one of Jacob 2-2’s best tracks to date. It feels purpose-built to be heard after-hours and late in the evening, a jazz-funk, stream-of-consciousness, meandering piece that seems to endlessly twist and turn. “Kuro” and “KZA” are heartfelt compositions about Jacob 2-2’s two cats. If there’s anything that can get us back to that child-like wonder we’ve lost, it’s our pets, the cats and dogs that accompany us every day through the indoor solitude.
“JonnyB@Humanidyne” and “One Million Treats” each pair spy jazz cinematics with bass music and breakbeats, replete with Jacob 2-2’s dizzying signature rhythms. “One Million Treats” is arguably the most suspenseful track of the bunch, but the music resolves with a happy ending. The cats get a nearly endless supply of treats.
Even though the sounds, the instrumentation, and the compositional qualities have largely evolved, Dreams of Indoor Ghosts has that same childhood nostalgia that Herbivore has. It’s playfully inventive, even in its darker moments. The songwriting is more mature, and Jacob 2-2’s production has never been better. It’s nice to know that some people haven’t forgotten how to play.
‘Dreams of Indoor Ghosts’ is out now. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Indoor Ghosts
2. Lounges for Mass Extinction
3. Get Wrecked, Kids!
4. Ebisu
5. Kuro
6. JohnnyB@Humanidyne
7. Laurentine
8. GrandMagic EyEOpening
9. Cloves
10. KZA
11. The Dead Still Daydream
12. One Million Treats
13. Hospice