Ah, Colorful Colorado. Home of the snow covered mountains, more breweries than you can count, the legendary John Elway and of course, ridiculous amounts of talented musicians. Anyone who’s had their pulse on the music industry over the past decade knows that Colorado is turning out high volumes of talented, genre bending artists regularly. Colorado has even come to have a little bit of it’s own sound, fusing hip hop beats with synth-laden melodies (i.e. Pretty Lights, Paul Basic, Paper Diamond).
Today we’re featuring a group that we recently came across that embodies what we’ve come to love about Colorado music. This Littleton based duo, comprised of producer Trent Campbell on midi controllers and Kyle Ayervais on drums, have a unique sound going on. They focus on blending miscellaneous samples from before any of us were born with worldy instruments to create what they call “Samptronic.” We asked TNERTLE to elaborate a little bit.
Ten seconds into “Manidad” and we were instantly hooked. The latin samples, echoing synths, and frenetic at time drumming style of Ayervais provide the perfect soundscape for J5’s lyrics. This track is a intriguing reinvention of the original that we’ve admittedly listened to on repeat. “New Skool Saloon” has a dance inducing hip hop beat created from careful sampling and bongos. On the flip side of the first two tracks you have “Entropy.” This definitely shows the softer side of the two, providing your ears with a slow melodic feel. It’s a nice change of pace from their other tracks.
